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ROBSON AND SO? S, PRINTERS, PAXCRAS ROAD, N.W. 


Catholic Church ands Christian. State. 


A SERIES OF ESSAYS 


ON THE 


RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE CIVIL POWER. 


TRANSLATED, WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE 
AUTHOR, FROM THE GERMAN 


OF 


DR. JOSEPH HERGENROTHER, 


PROFESSOR OF CANON LAW AND CHURCH HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF 
WURZBURG, 


IN TWO VOLUMES. 
VOR 


LONDON: BURNS AND OATES, 
Portman Street and Paternoster Row. 


1876, 


RC 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2007 with funding from 
Microsoft Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/catholicchurchch01 hergiala 


CONTENTS. 


——~——— 
PAGE 
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . 
ESSAY I. 
THE HOLY SEE AND CIVIL ALLEGIANCE, 
PaRT J. THE TEACHING OF THEOLOGIANS, 
SECT. 
1. This teaching presupposes the union of Church and State . ed 
2. Recognises for both the right of self-defence . : Hem ls 
3. Does not deny the independence of the State . ; 7 Le 
4, And its freedom in its own sphere F ; me ols 
5. In which, however, it is in many ways morally bound ; 6 
6. The power of the State is not without limits . ‘ : mS 
7. The power of the Church also has limits. 21 
8. The State has nothing to fear from the Church, “but vice versd, 
since the Reformation . : 22 
9. The Church especially threatened from two quarters . ‘ . 25 
10, Hindrances to the carrying out of the Church’s principles . » 28 
PART II, THE DECLARATIONS OF THE POPES GIVE NO CAUSE 
FOR APPREHENSION. 
1. Nothing defined as to the re of the sitar over seis ars 
matters . : : 30 
2. The Bull ‘ Unam sanctam’ ; P ; : : ; : OL 
3. Further objections é . 82 
4. Approbation of the Bull by the Fifth Council of the Lateran . 36 
5. Utterances on ecclesiastical immunities : . . 88 
6. The Bull ‘ Cum ex apostolatus officio’ . : : c : AI 
7. Further objections - ; , ; ; ; . 44 
8. The Bull ‘Cum quorumdam’ : : f : 2 : ape e. oi. 
9. The Bull ‘In coena Domini’ : ; c ; : 5 or ede 
10. Other Bulls also irrelevant . 51 
11. The Schema as to the Chureh that was laid d before the Vatican 


Council . - 51 


vl Contents. 





SECT. PAGE 
i2. Canons in this Schema on the relation of Church and State . 53 
13. The three last chapters of the Schema : : : ’ . 55 
14. Confusion of ideas among our opponents . : : : . 56 


Part III. THE POPES THEMSELVES SHOW THE GROUNDLESSNESS 
OF THE ALARM RAISED BY OUR OPPONENTS. 


1. Papal documents ignored by our opponents : : F Mit f 
2. Alleged instruction of Pius VII. . 58 
3. The Popes do not interfere in the internal affairs of nations 59 
4. They well recognise the difference between medixval and modern 
times. : ; : . 62 
5. Declaration of Pius IX. on 20th J uly 1871 . ; 64 
6. The Church limited to the purely ecclesiastical domain, and 
even there in many ways not free . : : : : . 65 
7. Nominations to bishoprics and abbacies_. ; : ; Sele 
8. Concessions to rulers . : : : : , : : ev) 
9. Concordats . ; : ; : : : Pr ath! 
10. Rome maintains their inviolability : , 75 
11. Rome unchanging, yet paying due regard to changes of times 
and circumstances . 3 : : : ‘ : : Senne 
ESSAY II. 


DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY. 


PART I. WHAT IS MEANT BY INFALLIBILITY. 


1. Its subject : the Pope discharging his office of universal teacher. 78 
2. Its object : questions of faith or morals. : : : OU 
3. Its cause : the assistance of the Holy Ghost : oe 
4. Its connection with the infallibility of the united episcopate . 84 
5. Tokens and limits of an ex-cathedré definition . : ; . 85 
6. Infallibility in no wise irrational - : ; : : phe s 
PART II. ON THE EVIDENCES OF SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION. 
1. Holy Scripture . : : ’ : : : : On 
2. St. Vincentius of Lerins : : : , : : Ae ai 
3. Testimony of the first six centuries. ; ; F ; De 
4. St. Ireneus . : : : : ‘ : : é 4090 
5. The formula of Hormisdas . : ; ; E ; A sang: 
G. Faith and obedience . ; . 108 
7. The second Council of Lyons and the Council of Florence . 104 
8. The Councils of Constance and Basle . : : : : LOT 
9. Prohibition of appeal from the Pope . 109 
10. The fallibilist doctrine when new was only tolerated and often 


disapproved . ‘ ; : ; : e ‘ . 110 


Contents. 


Vil 





ParT III. POLITICAL EFFECT OF THE DOGMA. 


SECT. PA 
1. That the dogma injures civil allegiance was asserted by the 


2, Conduces rather to the peace and prosperit y of the State . 


3. Why the doctrine not long ago recognised as dangerous? . 
4, 


Ln 


TD Ot ob 


CID Or 09 bo 


oO Ore Go bo 


Jansenists and the a a of the Vatican Council, but 

. 118 
“116 
. 118 
- 119 


not proved 


The change not in the Church but in the State . 


ESSAY III. 


A OD 
/ //. Yu, THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 


PART I. THE OPPONENTS OF THE COUNCIL ARE HERETICS. 
. Their inconsistency in rejecting the dogma of the Immaculate 


Conception 


. Their grounds and principles throughout heretical, Protestant . 

. Likewise their proceedings. Comparison with ‘those of the 
: : . 126 

. 128 

. 130 

- 132 

. 134 


Arians . 
. Comparison with those of the Donatists 
. All heretics reproach the Church with being corrupt . 
. Connection with Jansenism 


. Their want of unity in contrast with the unity of the ‘Church 


Part IJ. CHARGES AGAINST THE COUNCIL. 


Pretended want of freedom of the Council . 

. Letters on the Council and Friedrich’s Journal . 

. Alleged pressure by the Fore and the Curia 

. Right of proposal 

. Right of definition 

. Order of business . 

. Lay diplomacy 

. Charges against the Bishops of the majority 

. Composition of the Council . 

. Principle of majority . : 
. Representation and consent of individual Churches < 
. ‘Theologians’ and public opinion 


PART ILI. THE HOPES OF OUR OPPONENTS. 


. A new and ‘freer’ Council . j 

. Déllinger’s proposal. 

. Pretended warfare of the Church against the State 
. Excommunication 

. The Council a test of States : 

. The heathen State and State omnipotence : 


122 
123 


. 137 
. 139 
. 140 
. 140 
. 143 
. 144 
wleh 
. 148 


151 


. 152 
. 155 
Pat Hip 


. 158 
. 160 
Gl 
. 162 
. 163 
. 165 


Vill Contents. 





ESSAY IV. 
THE POPE AND THE BISHOPS. 


PART I. THE BISHOPS HAVE NOT BECOME MERELY VICARS OF 


THE POPE. 

SECT. PAGE 
1. The power of the Pope the supreme but not the only power _._ 168 
2. Doctrine of theologians upon the ordinary and immediate power 

of the Pope . wal 
3. The power of the Pope does not annul the ordinary power of the 
bishops . : s : ; ail 
4. The bishops as successors of the Apostles 5 ; ; A . 174 
PART II. How FAR EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY IS DERIVED 
IMMEDIATELY FROM GOD. 
1. Distinction between the power of order and the power of juris- 
diction . ; Peale: 
2, Jurisdiction received from the Pope. Council of Trent. plo 
3. Formula of preconisation . : - ; : : . . 181 
4. Opinion of theologians é 6 : ; : ; : ele 
5. Lainez . . ; : ; ; : : ; : . 183 
6. Objections answered. ‘ ; : - : : . 184 
7. The appointment of bishops . 188 
8. The Councils of Florence and Basle ; : authority of the Councils 190 
9. Bishops not merely advisers, but judges. 192 
10 


G OU os 


. Neither the Vatican Council nor the Council of Trent has decided 


whether episcopal jurisdiction is derived from the Pope or 
immediately from God . : : : : . ; . 193 


PART III. THE POWER OF THE POPE IS NOT THE ONLY POWER ; 
IT IS NOT ARBITRARY AND ABSOLUTE. 


. The power of the Church not solely vested in the Pope. Coun- 
cilof Trent . rls 
. The opponents of the Council repeatedly contradict them- 
selves. : . c . 194 
. Restriction upon the power of the Pop eed : Lod 
. No change made by the Vatican Counel's in this ‘matter ¢ . 200 
. Apprehensions founded upon mere suspicion : . 201 


. National Churches and bishops as vicars of the civil power . 202 


Contents. ix 





ESSAY V. 
THE SYLLABUS AND MODERN STATES. 


PART I. FORMAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ENCYCLICAL OF 1864 
AND OF THE SYLLABUS. 


SECT. PAGE 
1. Differences in the propositions of the Sues and in ecclesias- 

tical censures : : . 206 

2. Has the Syilabus dogmatic force? ; : : : ‘ . 207 

3. Illustrations . : : ; A : ; . 210 


PaRT II. THE PROPOSITIONS OF THE SYLLABUS. 


1. Prop. 1-18, 77-79 . : ; . 218 
2. Independence of the Church as a ‘perfect society : : . 214 
3. State interference : : : . 216 
4, Indirect negative power in religious matters : ? : DUT 
5. The Placet . : - ; . 218 
6. Appeal from a spiritual toa temporal ‘judge : : : . 220 
7. Power of the Church over temporal matters : : : . 222 
8. Immunities . - , é , . : : . 224 
9. Instruction and education . : : ; 2 . 226 
10. Princes. Civil and ecclesiastical law. Ordination vows . . 227 
11. Marriage. P ¢ : P . 232 
12. The family. Limits of State authority : ‘ ; : . 235 
13. Divergence of civil laws from ecclesiastical : : ‘ . 237 
14,15. Non-intervention . ; ss : 5 g ; . 239 
16. Revolution . 3 : 4 : : A : . 242 
17. Sovereignty of the people : F F : : F : . 244 
18. Practical materialism . : : : : : : c . 245 
19, 20. Liberalism . : : i : : : : . 246 
21. Errors of modern society é - . 250 


22. Folly of the conclusions wrongly ‘drawn from the Syllabus . 252 


ESSAY VI. 
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 
PaRTI, INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH ON SOCIAL AND POLITICAL 
LIFE. 


1. The Church in the Germanic kingdoms . : F : . 255 
2. Elective and hereditary monarchies . : : 2 3 . 255 





x Contents. 

SECT. PAGE 
3. Restriction of the royal power . . 256 
4. The first duties of a king, those towards God . 258 
5. The oath of kings : . 259 
6. Their coronation and anointing : : 5 . 260 
7. Kinghood and knighthood . 261 
8. Power of the clergy, especially the bishops . . 264 
9. State of society in that day . é . 265 

10. Close union between Church and ‘State . 267 

11. Natural, divine, and positive law . 269 

12. Religion and freedom . rafal 

PART IJ. THE POWER OF THE PAPACY. 

1. Exalted position of the Pope . 273 
2. The Pope the father of the one family ‘of Christian nations . 275 
3. Disputes settled by him j ; ; ~ 277 
4. Public affairs conducted by him . ~ 219 
5. The Pope the refuge of all : : . 280 
6. Legislation of the Popes. Laws upon usury . 281 
7. The Popes active in the interests of princes . 285 
8. Their government 287 
) 


_ 
oO 


CONN FP WH 


21 


. Their temporal power not inconsistent with the spirit of the 
, ‘ , é . 289 
. 292 


Gospel 


. Their power developed 1 naturally . 


PART III. EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES IN THE 


MIDDLE AGES. 


. Temporal effects of public penance and of excommunication 
. Exclusion from public offices ; : 

. From military service. Exceptions 

. Intercourse with the excommunicated ‘ 
. Severity of discipline mitigated in some points . 
. In others increased 

. Kings also liable to excommunication | 
. Release from the oath of allegiance 

. Can the Chureh dispense oaths? . 

10. 
DE 
12. 
ley 
14. 
15. 
16. 
Aba 
13: 
19) 


Who can dispense oaths ? 
Examples 


Principles relating to dispensation from oaths . 


More recent times 

Deposing rare ; 

The eleventh Ecumenical Council 

The first Council of Lyons . : 

Councils of Constance and Basle. : 
Councils pass the same sentences as Popes . 
20. Objections : F : 


, 22. Answers . 


. 293 
2295 
peri) 
s2299. 
. 3038 
. 305 
. 306 
. 3807 
. 309 
. 311 
. 313 
. 314 
. 316 
wioLe 
splod, 
. 320 
. 323 
soot 
. 827 
. 332 


Contents. xi 





ESSAY VII. 
CIVIL RULERS AND THE HOLY SEE. 


PART [. ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION EXERCISED BY THE POPES 
OVER CIVIL PRINCES IN THEIR MATRIMONIAL AFFAIRS. 


SECT. PAGE 
1. King Robert of France s : 2 : Pach 
2,3. Simony of Philip I. . é 3 : : : 5 . 341 
4-7. His marriages . 3 ‘ : ‘ - : : : . 343 
8-11. Philip Augustus : , : : : = é . 349 

12. The King of Leon : : : : : Z x 5 . B55 


PART II. THE PRINCES RECOGNISED ECCLESIASTICAL 


JURISDICTION. 
1. The right of censure over them gradually reserved for the Pope 358 
2. Recognition of Papal authority j ; . 360 
3. Titles of honour and intercession with the Popes : g . 361 
4-7. Letters of princes. : : ‘ : a . 362 
8. The Pope as protector of kingdoms 5 : : . 868 
9. Papal ratifications of ee laws, donations, &e. F 3 mes ydl) 
10. Louis 1X. of France. : ; F : ‘ . 372 
11. Resistance of individual princes : é . : - A . 374 
12. Their superiority to all laws ; : . B74 
13. Ignorance of princes was not fostered by the Church . . 376 
ESSAY VIII. 
POPE GREGORY VII. 
PART J. GREGORY'S CONFLICT WITH HENRY IV. 
1. Gregory's admonitions . : : . 380 
2. The proceedings of Henry. “The Synod of Worms. Sisites)| 
3. Excommunication and release from the oath of allegiance . 383 
4. Henry IV. at Conossa . . B&+ 
5. The Pope unconnected with ‘the election of the opposition king . 386 
6. Recognition of Rudolph. The Antipope Clement III. : . 386 
7. Occupation of Rome and coronation of the emperor . ; » 387 
8. Gregory’s fundamental principles ? f : : . 388 
9. Justification of his proceedings against Henry é . 390 
10. With reference to the dispensation of the oath of allegiance 2 39D 
11. His principles not novel ; : : z : : : . 396 
12. St. Peter Damiani : : : : : ; ; ; ABLE 


13. No unfairness in Gregory . é : : : : : . 399 


xii Contents. 





PART II. GREGORY DID TREAT ALL PRINCES AS VASSALS. 


SECT. PAG. 
1. Feudal suzerainty over single kingdoms. ‘ : : . 401 
2. Hungary and Poland . ; : 0 : : ; : . 402 
3. Bohemia : : : : c : .: . 404 
4. Denmark . ; ; : : s : ; ; : . 405 
5. Spain . ; 5 : ‘ , ; ‘ : . 406 
6. Corsica and Sardinia . : . 407 
7. Various relations of single States towards the Holy See : . 408 
8. Gregory’s declaration that Peter was set as a prince over all the 

kingdoms of theearth . : : g ; . 409 


PARTIII. IT IS FALSE THAT GREGORY TAUGHT THAT THE POPE 
COULD TAKE AND DISPOSE AS HE WOULD OF KINGDOMS AND 
OF THE POSSESSIONS OF PRIVATE PERSONS. 


. Gregory’s words . ; : : Z 5 : . 410 


1 5 

2. Personal holiness of Popes 5 . : : : A f . 412 
3. Gregory’s death in exile : : : : ; e . 412 
4, Alleged fruitlessness of his conflicts. - : : a . 415 
5. Their result . . 417 
6. Gregory’s aim to free the Church from i ignominious shackles. 419 


THE 


Catholic Church and the Christian State. 


INTRODUCTION. 


i. 
No apology is needed for offering to the public a translation of 


a work by so eminent an author as Dr. Hergenrother, and on a 
subject so much discussed as the relations of Church and State. 
The Author is already known in England by his Anti-Janus, 
which has been translated by Professor Robertson ; and in Ger- 
many he is recognised as one of the most learned and zealous 
among the defenders of the Church. As such, he is singled out 
for especial attack by the champions of the Dollingerite heresy, 
and is mockingly called ‘the official refuting theologian of the 
Vatican.’ But as the English public is fortunately unacquainted 
with these attacks, it is needless to give that portion of the in- 
troduction to his esssys in which Dr. Hergenréther repels the 
charges brought against himself and his fellow-labourers, and 
exposes the rude insolence of his opponents: showing their 
literary failings and contradictions, which contrast with their 
arrogant claim to a monopoly of historical and theological learn- 
ing. It is enough to say that this work, while answering the 
criticisms on Anti-Janus, is far more than a mere answer. The 
author’s intention has been not to rest on the surface, but to 
give so thorough and deep an account of the relations of Church — 
and State, as to serve for more than the purposes of ephemeral 
controversy, and to be a work of permanent value and reference. 
VOL, I. B 


2 Introduction. 





It is thus especially suited to the present needs of the Catholics 
of England, who, amid the controversies as to Church and State, 
which have grown to such proportions since Mr. Gladstone’s 
too-famous Expostulation, require something more than pam- 
phlets, however excellent, and answers, however conclusive, to 
particular accusations. A more complete and solid discussion of 
these subjects is needed, which may serve as an armoury from 
which to draw weapons against any particular attack, and as a 
bulwark behind which weaker brethren may securely take their 
stand : a book, in short, which we may place in the hands of 
our non-Catholic countrymen, and, until it is read and answered, 
decline to enter on further controversy. That the present work 
may satisfy this need is the hope of the Translator ; and in view 
to this end, while translating the text of the second and popular 
German edition, he has preserved most of the notes of the first 
edition, which was intended rather for the learned than for 
ordinary readers. These notes form an invaluable body of refer- 
ences; and the Translator, by combining them with the text of 
the second edition, hopes to give to the studious few the full 
advantages of the original edition, and at the same time to give 
to the general public a text they can easily understand. On the 
same principle, he has occasionally given in the text an explana- 
tory paraphrase in the place of a literal translation, and has occa- 
sionally omitted allusions to modern German writers, newspapers, 
and political events, which are unfamiliar and uninteresting to 
English readers, and would often require lengthy explanation. 
The only considerable passage omitted is a digression on the 
‘Placet’ in Bavaria, which, while of importance to Dr. Hergen- 
rother’s fellow-countrymen, especially those of the legal profes- 
sion, is not of importance to us, for whom the general account of 
the placet is quite sufficient. As to the order of the essays, 
which is different in the two editions, that of the second has 
been followed, except in placing the fourth and fifth before the 
first, second, and third. 

The Translator must here advert to a possible misunderstand- 
ing as to the words ‘ Liberal’ and ‘ Liberalism,’ which often occur 
in this work, and always with a bad sense attached to them. He 


Introduction. 4 





begs the reader to remember that there is a difference between 
the English and continental sense in which these words are’ 
generally used. In Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and 
elsewhere, ‘ Liberal’ necessarily implies anti-Catholic: the party 
called National-Liberal in Germany is the relentless persecutor of 
the Church; nor is any broad distinction made between reli- 
gious and political liberalism : whereas in England ‘ Liberal’ has 
often a sense in no wise anti-Catholic or anti-Christian, and may 
denote merely giving support to a political party which (at any 
rate till quite recent times) has shown the most regard to the 
rights of Catholics. In the present work the word is used in 
the continental sense ; and the Translator has less scruple in so 
employing it, because it has been used in a closely corresponding 
sense by Dr. Newman in the History of my Religious Opinions.* 
On the same principle, the word ‘Conservative’ is used always 
in a good sense, as opposed to ‘ revolutionary.’ 


AT; 


The Translator has now to give, in a concise and continuous 
form, certain portions of Dr. Hergenrother’s introduction, which 
are scattered amid his criticisms of his literary opponents, and 
which are as interesting and profitable to English as to German 
readers, inasmuch as describing certain common failings and 
false positions fatal to true historical impartiality. 

First, it is a grave error to overlook the changes that have 
occurred since the Middle Ages, and to compare the medieval 
Papacy, not, as would be just, with the medieval States, but 
with an ideal and abstract State framed according to modern 
political notions. The Church, indeed, though changing much 
in her discipline, has changed nothing in those principles of 
action which are the result of her dogmas. But nations and 
kingdoms have undergone the greatest transformations; and even 
the notion of the State has become different,t as any one would 

* See especially the note [A] on Liberalism. 

+ See Walter, Naturrecht und Politik, § 44, Bonn, 2d edit. 1871. 
Aegidi hardly admits States to have existed in the Middle Ages, but only 


provinces of the Holy Roman Empire (Erlanger, Theol. Zeitsch., new 
series, vol. xxxvi. p. 143). 


4 Lntroduction. 





see who compared a modern compendium of constitutional law 
with analogous works in the juridical literature of former cen- 
turies. Gross is the inconsistency of those who still claim for 
the State various privileges in religious matters formerly con- 
ceded to it by the Church, and at the same time proclaim the 
separation of the two powers—who rest with one foot on the 
ground of the ancient Catholic State, and with the other on that 
of the modern State that has no religion—who to-day write on 
their banners absolute civil and religious liberty, and to-morrow 
write the omnipotence of the abstract State. Let us ever remem- 
ber that each age gives its own special character to States, and 
that those of the present age are no exceptions, but have a special. 
character, which in its own turn will pass away. 

A second failing is to forget that ‘there is nothing in the 
world which cannot be brought into discredit’ (we are quoting 
from Balmez)* ‘by showing only one side of it ; for thus con- 
sidered, all things are false, or rather are not themselves. All 
bodies have three dimensions: only to look at one is not to form 
an idea of the body itself, but of a quantity very different from 
it. Take any institution, the most just and useful that can be 
imagined, and look at it simply from the point of view of the 
evils and disadvantages that it has caused, taking care to bring 
together into a few pages what in reality was spread over a great 
many ages, its history will appear repulsive, odious, and execra- 
ble. Ifa partisan of democracy describe in narrow compass, an 
by means of historical facts, all the disadvantages and evils of 
monarchy—the vicesand crimes of kings—in whatlight will mon- 
archy appear ? If, in his turn, a partisan of monarchy describe de- 
mocracy and demagogues by the same method of historical facts, 
how will democracy appear? By assembling in one picture all the 
evils occasioned to nations by a high development of the social 
state, we can make civilisation and refinement appear detestable. 
By selecting certain features from the annals of the human mind 
the history of science can be made the history of folly, and even 
of crime. By heaping together the fatal accidents which have 


* Protestanismo y Catolicismo, vol. iii. p. 252 (2d edit.); English 
translation, p. 170 (3d edit.). 


Introduction. iS 





been occasioned by the masters of the healing art, their benefi- 
cent profession may be represented as a career of homicide. In 
a word, everything may be falsified by proceeding in this way. 
God Himself would appear to us a monster of cruelty and 
tyranny, if, putting aside His goodness, wisdom, and justice, we 
only looked at the evils in a world created by His power, and 
governed by His providence.’ This was precisely the method 
adopted in the book the Pope and the Council, by Janus. 

A third error is to suppose that those who defend the cause 
of the Holy See are pledged to justify all actions of the Popes.* 
Far from this being the case, most zealous defenders of the Holy 
See have shown that their zeal is no hindrance to boldly speak- 
ing out the plain historical truth. It has been long ago observedt 
that Cardinal Baronius, ever a foremost champion of the Holy 
See, not only collected with conscientious exactitude all the evil 
xeports about the Popes (especially of the tenth century) which 
he found in historical sources, but also was much too credulous 
in this matter, and in some cases held up Popes to censure where 
he ought rather to have unsheathed the sword of criticism against 
historical calumnies. And the Civiltu Cattolica, against which so 
many invectives are cast, in its notice of Von Reumont’s History 
of the City of Rome,t praises the author because, with the free- 
dom of a Baronius or Pallavicino, he does not conceal the ill 
‘deeds of Popes, cardinals, and prelates, and preserves the mean 
between the exaggerations on the one side of ill-judged flattery, 
and on the other of venomous calumny. ‘ The latter, which infects 
the writings of so many Rationalists and Protestants at home and 
abroad, robs history of all credibility, degrading it into a libel ; 
but not less injurious to history is that flattery which changes it 
into a panegyric, and professes to justify every action of the 

* Hefele, Beitriige zur Kirchengeschichte, 1864, vol. i.; apud Méhler- 
Gams, Kirchengeschichte, vol. ii. p. 188. 
+ Civilta Cattolica, 1871, ser. viii. vol. ii. pp. 174, 175. 

t The statement of Bossuet (Defensio Declar. Cleri Gallic. p. i. 
1. iii. c. i. p. 273, ed. Mog. 1788), that not all deeds of the Popes are 
justifiable, is disputed by no Ultramontane theologian. See Bianchi, 


Della Potesta e Polizia della Chiesa, Roma, 1745, t.i. 1. i. § 21, n.1, 
pp. 183, 184. 


6 L[ntroduction. 








Popes. This seems not to be understood by certain pious and 
zealous but unwise authors, who maintain certain views in the 
teeth of incontestable facts, and do not see that not merely their 
labour is in vain, but also that, being unable long to escape the 
censure or the ridicule of criticism, they must end by having to 
confess that they have injured rather than advanced their cause. 
Rteumont is not one of these. He relates and blames in Alexander 
VI. as in Urban VI., in Leo X. as in Paul IV., in Clement VII. 
as in Urban VIII., their defects or excesses, their too great seve- 
rity or too great leniency ; while at the same time he shows all the 
good qualities with which they adorned the chair of St. Peter. 
He censures the abuses of Papal nepotism, whereby it became 
full of danger to the Church and the State; but, on the other 
hand, he is fully mindful of the advantages which it often 
brought, of the distinguished qualities of many of the Papal 
nephews, and the services which, as cardinals, they rendered to 
Church and State. He relates and laments the wanton and 
frivolous life of many prelates and cardinals, especially in certain 
unhappy periods, to the dishonour of their lofty and sacred office ;, 
but at the same time he places in all its beauty before the eyes 
of the reader the picture of the virtues and talents, of the meri- 
torious and magnificent works, by which the Sacred College and 
the Roman prelacy has in every age been distinguished, and has. 
shown itself as the noblest and most glorious senate the world 
has ever seen.’ 

A fourth misconception is to suppose that ‘ Ultramontanes’” 
wish to bring back the Middle Ages. ‘ When I combated the 
crude and reckless assertions of ‘‘ Janus,” and defended to the 
best of my ability and with full sincerity institutions and indi- 
viduals of the Middle Ages, I never said.that all should be now 
again as it was then, and that all forms of that development 
should be retained or reintroduced. Nor had I any intention of 
rejecting modern civilisation altogether, though I could not con- 
ceal from myself that it contains elements of very doubtful value, 
and is very far from being purified from its dross; that goods 
of a lower order receive at the present day undue attention at 
the cost of goods of a far higher order; and that many resem- 


Introduction. 7 





blances are to be seen to that condition of ancient Greece and 
Rome, where, as life grew more refined, morals grew more cor- 
rupt. Our civilisation, which sprang from Christianity, has be- 
come in many ways estranged from its origin, and has gone back 
instead of going forward.* It must develop, we are told, in- 
dependently of and in spite of, not the Papacy only, but Chris- 
tianity in general, Already many Jews, in heart alienated from 
their religion, boast to take the lead in modern civilisation. <Al- 
ready much is cast aside as medieval rubbish which formerly 
was revered by all Christian denominations. The spirit of the 
Encyclopzedists is as powerful as it was a hundred years ago, 
and is far more widely spread. And yet no proof is brought 
that that great power, whether the Christian religion in general, 
or the venerable chair of the Prince of the Apostles, must have 
irrecoverably lost its civilising and ennobling force. Without 
the Papacy a fearful deficiency would arise for States, as well 
as for all cultivation and all law; disorganisation in religious, 
social, and political life would gain the upper hand ; anarchy 
and the right of the stronger would everywhere triumph ; and 
in the Church there would only be the alternative between 
Byzantine or Russian servitude on the one side, and the anarchy 
of unbridled private judgment on the other.’ 

Lastly, there should be noticed an error, or rather a calumny, 
which primarily indeed concerns the Catholics of Germany, but 
which to a certain extent concerns those of England also, espe- 
cially since the recent charge of disloyalty brought against them. 
‘The chief effort of all the enemies of the Church is in these 
days to depict her as dangerous to the civil power, and under 
this pretext as far as possible to enslave her. This attempt is 
not new. ‘The reproach of being dangerous to the State was 
cast against even the first Christians, and has been repeated a 
thousand times against the Holy See. But as the present time 
gives such slender support to such an accusation, the past is 
brought in to the rescue, and a search is made in the history of 
the Popes, in their letters and publications, for proofs that they 


* Hettinger, Apologie des Christenthums, 3d edit. vol. ii. part 3, 
xix. and xx. 


8 Introduction. 





strove for the subjection or annihilation of the civil power in 
every country. In this search the distinction of different spheres 
is hopelessly confused. If the Holy See is not ready to con- 
demn as usurpations various acts of former Popes, which are 
denounced as such, he is unblushingly accused of intending to 
repeat these acts himself. If the ecclesiastical authority, to be 
better able to meet the storms ofa revolutionary age, is strength- 
ened in its centre, this at once is held to weaken the civil autho- 
rity. The admonitions of the Church are spoken of as declara- 
tions of war. Encouragement and protection is given to revolt 
against her, under the pretext—the common pretext of all 
heretics—that her doctrine and constitution have been changed. 
Since the ghosts of the Middle Ages, especially ‘ Hildebrand- 
ism,” have been conjured up, the fear of the “ Papal-Jesuit 
conspiracy” has so increased that the whole array of coercive 
measures, penal laws, courts and officers of justice, the police 
and the military force, have been held insufficient to meet it. 
And all these measures have been taken against a despised 
““sect,” against a society whose head has been robbed of his 
possessions and of all external power, and who is surrounded by 
a thousand troubles. True, indeed, this much-troubled head is 
the lawful successor of Gregory VII. and Innocent III., as well 
as of the great Leo and of Cephas the Galilean fisherman. True, 
indeed, in spite of his foes, he possesses in the eyes of millions 
a dignity and majesty with which the splendour of no earthly 
throne can compare. True, indeed, moral power is often stronger 
than physical. But is, then, our enlightened age to fear this 
moral power? Is not its “science” stronger than this ‘“ de- 
crepit” authority? Can this authority have strength to fight 
when its doctrines are outlawed by “ science,” and when the 
demand is made (as a deputy in the German parliament de- 
manded) that in schools and universities ‘‘ things” no longer shall 
be taught “which are in glaring contradiction with science” ? 
Well may we say that the question: What is science? is like 
that other question: What is truth? and that more than one 
Pilate is to be found, who after asking this question turns away 
without awaiting an answer (John xviii. 38).’ 


L[ntroduction. 9 





Ii. 


Finally, as to the structure and spirit of the following essays, 
Dr. Hergenréther speaks as follows: ‘ Instead of a strictly me- 
thodical exposition, which would have deterred many readers, 
and which would have made it impossible to answer fitly the 
unmethodical works of my opponents, I have preferred the form 
of separate essays, which are in close connection with each other, 
and which allow me to treat the chief subjects from various 
points of view. In this I have had before me the ‘“ Polycraticus” 
of the learned John of Salisbury, who treated the most interest- 
ing questions of his time with constant reference to Scripture, 
the Fathers, and classical authors, and who on every occasion 
dleclared his fidelity to the Church. ‘ What,” he wrote,* “is 
more dangerous or more detestable than civil war? Surely 
nothing except the rage of schismatics and the pestilence of 
heretics. It is hard to say which is worst of these two—heresy 
or schism ; if, indeed, they are not rather to be considered as 
one. When Catholics are assailed by a heretic or schismatic it 
is a filial duty to support the truth and to serve the Popes de- 
votedly ; nor to delay when the schism is evident, since schis- 
matics often pretend to be Catholics. For who shall presume 
to judge the highest bishop, whose cause belongs to God’s tri- 
bunal alone? And in fact, whoever is guilty of this presump- 
tion, strive how he may, will never gain success.” ‘Truly we 
may say of the schismatics of our time what St. Irenaeus says of 
those of his time,f that they strain out a gnat and swallow a 
camel, and that they can effect no reform which is not out- 
balanced by the evil of their schism. Into further controversies 


* Polycrat. 1. viii. c. xxiii. (Migne, PP. lat. t. excix. p. 814). 

t S. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer.Liv. ¢. xxxiii.n.7: ‘Judicabit (spiritualis homo) 
et eos, qui schismata operantur, qui sunt inanes, non habentes Dei dilec- 
tionem suamque utilitatem yotius considerantes, quam unitatem Ecclesiae, 
et propter modicas et quaslibet causas magnum et gloriosum corpus 
Christi conscindunt et dividunt, et quantum in ipsis est interficiunt, pacem 
loquentes et bellum operantes, vere liquantes culicem et camelum trans- 
glutientes. Nulla enim ab eis tanta potest fieri correctio, quanta est schis- 
matis pernicies.’ 


10 Introduction. 





I have no intention of entering ; but I am fully ready to retract 
or amend whatever, by the judgment of the Holy See or on ade- 
quate scientific grounds, may be shown in this work to be incor- 
rect. All for the truth, nothing against the truth; all for the 
Church of God and in union with her—this is my motto.’ 





ESSAY I. 
THE HOLY SEE AND CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 


Many writers and some statesmen have expressed their lively 
apprehension lest the Church, whenever opportunity arose, should 
renew those encroachments on the authority of the State which 
they say occurred in the Middle Ages; and they consider this 
danger has been increased by the definition of Papal Infallibility. 
We might well lay aside the historical question of ‘ medieval 
Church encroachments,’ and ask the reason for this apprehen- 
sion, when simultaneously we hear it said that the medieval 
notion of the supremacy of the Church has vanished for ever, 
that the sun of ecclesiastical power is fast setting, that the State 
has at its disposal greater intellectual forces than the Church, 
and that the political consciousness of the State is more effica- 
cious than the ‘religious emotions’ of the Church in preserving 
manly energy and mental freedom. But in fact neither the 
teaching of theologians nor the declarations of the Popes afford 
any just grounds for the aforesaid apprehéusion, but much rather 
make plain its groundlessness. 


Part I. Tue Teacuine or THEOLOGIANS. 


§$ 1. This presupposes the union of Church and State. § 2. Recognises 
for both the right of self-defence. § 3. Does not deny the independence 
of the State; and § 4. its freedom in its own sphere. § 5. In which, 
however, it is in many ways morally bound. § 6. The power of the 
State is not without limits. § 7. The power of the Church also has 
limits. § 8. The State has nothing to fear from the Church, but vice 
versa, since the Reformation. § 9. The Church especially threatened 
from two quarters. § 10. Hindrances to the carrying out of the Church’s. 


principles. 
§ 1. 


The teaching of the theologians of the Middle Ages rested 
upon the supposition, justified then by facts and considered as a 


12 The Floly See and Civil Allegiance. 





matter of course, that the temporal and spiritual authority would 
live under one roof, constituting an undivided Christendom, and 
that both would be equally guided and governed by Christian 
principles.!- Whoever will look at the matter from the medieval 
point of view will perceive, as several eminent men of modern 
times—for example, Leibnitz and Mendelssohn—have done, that 
the widely-spread doctrine of the indirect power of the Church 
over temporal concerns is throughout consistent, and for those 
times an obvious conclusion.2, We should not forget, as Phillips 
well says, that the commonwealth here spoken of does not 
include all States without distinction, but only the medieval 
Christian State ; that if we presuppose the separation of Church 
and State, many things will appear in quite a different light ; 
and also that the Christian State of those ages cannot in all 
respects be taken as the rule and model for our own time. 


1 Bossuet, Def. p. i. Ll. i. c. ii. p. 87: ‘Haec autem valere volunt (ad- 
versae partis Theologiae), quando utraque potestas, civilis et spiritualis, pars 
.est ejusdem reipublicae Christianae; tunc enim spiritualem potestatem prae- 
esse Civili ut spiritum carni.’ Cf. Bellanm. de Rom. Pont. v. ¢. vii. n. 2: 
“ Reges et pontifices, clerici et laici, non faciunt duas republicas, sed unam, 
i.e. unam Ecclesiam. Sumus enim omnes unum corpus (Rom. xii. 5; 
1 Cor. xii. 12 seq.) ; at in omni corpore membra sunt connexa et depend- 
entia unum ab alio. Non autem recte asseritur, spiritualia pendere a 
temporalibus ; ergo temporalia a spiritualibus pendent,’ &c. See also 

Bianchi, t. iii. l,i. c. i. § 6, n. 1, pp. 47, 48. Molina, tract. ii. de Just et 
Jure, disp. 29, n. 24. 

? See the quotations in Beidtel, Das Canonische Recht, Regensburg, 
1849, pp. 339, 341 seq. Besides the passages there given from Leibnitz 
(Pensées, vol. ii. pp. 406, 407), we should notice a letter to Pelisson, of 
March 18 (28), 1692. Here Leibnitz says: ‘Quant au pouvoir de l’Kglise 
ou du Concile oecuménique sur les matiéres temporelles, je crois qw’il le 
faut reconnaitre a Végard dune influence indirecte, que les matiéres tem- 

- porelles peuvent avoir sur le salut des dimes, L’Eglise doit regler le cas 
de conscience encore a l’égard de l’obéissance due ou non aux souverains. 
J’excepte seulement le pouvoir de rebeller ou la voye de fait, que l’Eglise 
ne peut et ne doit point autoriser. Elle peut faire défense aux sujets 
dobéir aux magistrats en certains cas, et ils sont obligés alors d’obéir 
plutdt 4 ’Eglise universelle qu’ leur souverain. Mais lorsque les sou- 
verains les maltraitent pour cela, ils ne doivent point étre rebelles’ 
(Foucher de Careil, Oeuvres de Leibniz: Paris, 1859, vol. i. p. 264). Cf. 
also Leibnitz’s Réponse au Mémoire de l’Abbé Pirot touchant l’Autho- 
rité du Concile de Trente (ibid. pp. 405-407). 

3 Phillips, Kirchenrecht, vol. iii. § 126, p. 188 seq. 


The Teaching of Theologians. 13 





§ 2. 

Even under the supposition of the union of Church and 
State it has been admitted by theologians,! some of whom lived 
in Rome, and wrote under the supervision of the authorities 
there,? that it would be allowable for civil princes to oppose the 
Pope in certain cases ; for example, if he were to put forth unjust 
laws relating to discipline, or were forcibly to seize the posses- 
sions of others.1_ The mutual independence of Pope and princes 
is thus preserved. When the necessity for self-preservation is 
real and obvious, the State may organise its resistance, whicl 
is easily done, especially in these days. But the Church also 
possesses a natural right of self-defence ;3 and just as any king- 
dom may expect from its neighbours that they will not wilfully 
excite its subjects to revolt, nor be guilty of any injustice 
towards it, and moreover may take up arms to protect its inter- 
ests, if its just complaints are disregarded; so the spiritual 
kingdom of the Church, in cases of pressing need and for the 
preservation of its vital interests, may, when all representa- 
tions fail, have resort to any means of defence in its power.* 
Dollinger, on this subject, makes Bossuet’s words his own: 
‘When necessity calls for it the Pope can do everything—of 
course with the reservation of observing God’s laws.’ He 
designates the Papal authority as one truly sovereign and free, 
‘necessarily endowed according to its nature and constitution 
with an extraordinary power for extraordinary cases and needs, 
whereby it may make all merely human rights bow before it, 
and appoint or allow exceptions to rules.’5 Ever according to the 
requirements of different times the Pope under the guidance of 
Providence has to increase or relax the strictness of ecclesiastical, 
law, and for new maladies to provide new remedies ;° and he 
must take special measures against the union of wickedness and 
power.? Thus the doctrine, that the Pope is to be compared 
to a free prince active throughout the entire Church, is no 
merely medieval doctrine,® but one that is implied by the nature 
and essence of the primacy. 

1 Anton. Cordubens. quaestion. 1. iy. q. 10, dict. 3; 1. iii. q. 13, reg. 3. 


14 The Floly See and Civil Allegiance. 





Sylvester in Summa v. Obedientia, n. 5, 6. Andradius in defens. Trid. Fid. 
1. i. Paris, TT. pro Cone. Basil. (in Monarchia, ed. Haiminsfeldii, t. i.) 
contra Leonem, p. x. Cajetan. t. i. Opuse. Tract. i. de potest. Papae, ¢.xxvii. 
Victoria, Relect. 1, de potest. Eccles. q. ult. n. 3. Sotus in f. iv. dist. 25, 
q. 2, a. 2. Driedo, 1. ii. de Libertate Christiana, c. ii. L. Molina, Tract. ii. 
de Justitia et Jure, disput. 31, n. 4, 5, p. 64. See also Turrecremata, 
Summa, I. ii. c. evi. pp. 246, 247. Bellarmin. de Rom. Pontif. 1. ii. c. xxix. 
de auctore Concil. 1. ii. c. ult. p. 51; Opp. t. ii. ed. 1721. Card. Sfondrat. 
Regale Sacerdot. 1. ii. c. xiv. n. 4, p. 416, ed. 1684. Cf. Caron, Remonstr. 
Hibern. p. i. c. v. n. 16-22, pp. 12, 13. 

2 Bianchi, t. iii. 1.1. § 5, n. 2, p. 43 seq. Mamachi, t. iv. p. 258. 

3 L. iii. de Just. et Jure, ff. i. 1; c. iii. de Sent. Excom. v. 39. 

4 The jus cavendi is therefore reciprocal. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, 
vol. ii. § 109, pp. 524-530. 

5 Déllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, pp. 39, 40. 

6 Abbot Wibald, of Stablo and Corvey, wrote (Ep. 114, p. 1208) to 
Eugenius III.: ‘ Licuit semperque licebit Romano Pontifici pro rerum 
qualitate et temporum varietate rigorem canonum intendere vel remittere 
et nova remedia novis morbis adhibere.’ Cf. Ep. 191, p. 1288 seq. 

7 Bernard. de Consid. 1. iv. c. vii. n. 23: ‘ Ubi malitiae juncta potentia 
est, aliquid tibi supra hominem praesumendum. Vultus tuus super faci- 
entes mala. Timeat spiritum irae tuae, qui hominum non veretur, gladium 
non formidat.’ ; : 

8 Syllabus, prop. 34, taken from the apostolic letter of 22 August 1851, 
against J. N. Nuytz. 


§ 3. 

But though a preéminence of the Church over the State, an 
ideal superiority of the Church, is assumed, this doctrine con- 
tains in reality none of the dangers often attributed to it. It 
by no means ‘annihilates’ or ‘destroys’ the civil power. For 
the superiority of the Church over the civil power is only called 
forth practically when the latter is no longer within its own 
province, when the interests in question are not purely civil, but 
have also a religious character. In its own province the civil 
power is fully independent as long as it does no injury to reli- 
gion.) The Church does not demand a recognition of her 
superiority over the State for the promotion of the personal and 
temporal interests of her rulers, but only for the maintenance of 
the truth revealed by God, which is for the true interest of the 
State and the Christian people. She only requires that the re- 
cognition of God as the source of every right shall not merely 
be speculative and theoretical, but practically and truly acted 


The Teaching of Theologians. 15 





upon by the State, or at least that it shall not be positively 
contravened, which ever will be and ever has been injurious to 
the State. We must also remember the incontrovertible theo- 
logical principle that Grace does not destroy Nature, that the 
supernatural order does not annul the natural order.? The 
Church could not possibly exercise everywhere the functions of 
the civil power, just as little as the civil power could exercise 
the functions of the Church. The Church needs the State as 
the State needs the Church. The Popes have laid no less 
stress on the codrdination of the two powers than on the 
superiority of the Church. Innocent III. in a letter to the 
princes of the German Empire—an important document—brings 
forward from Holy Scripture four images to illustrate the posi- 
tion of the two powers,* namely: the two Cherubim over the 
ark of the Covenant (Exodus xxxvii. 7 seq.), the two pillars in 
the porch of the Temple (3 Kings vii. 15), the two lights in . 
the firmament of heaven (Genesis i. 14 seq.), and the two 
swords (St. Luke xxii. 38). Of these images, the two first are 
only applicable to a coordination of Church and State ; and, as 
the Pope uses it, the fourth also illustrates this codrdination. 

1 §. Thom. in 1. ii. Sent. d. et q. ult.: ‘In tantum saecularis potestas 
est sub spirituali, in quantum est ei a Deo supposita, sc. in his, quae ad 
animarum salutem pertinent ; et ideo in his magis est obediendum potestati 
spirituali quam saeculari. In his vero, quae ad jus civile pertinent, magis 
est obediendum potestati saeculari quam spirituali, secundum illud: Red- 
dite quae sunt Caesaris, Caesari,’ &c. 

2 §. Thom. Sum. 2, 2, q. 10, a. 10: ‘Jus divinum, quod est ex gratia, 
non tollit jus humanum, quod est ex naturali ratione.’ Cf. Suarez, de 
Legibus, 1. iii. c. vi. n. 9. 

5 Petrus Dam. 1. iii. ep. 6, ad archiepisc. Colon. 

* Reg. super negotio Rom. Imperii, Ep. 2. “Migne, ccxvi. p. 997. 


§ 4. 
The two powers are not independent of each other in such 
a way that the one should have no need of and pay no atten- 
tion to the other. On the contrary, each should always be ready 
to lend a willing ear to the representations of the other, and to 
redress all well-founded grievances. And in particular the 
State must obey the divine law committed to the Church. 


16 The Hloly See and Civil Allegiance. 





‘The independence of the two powers,’ says Phillips, ‘ can only 
mean that both are free in their exertions to fulfil their natural 
end; the Church has not to interfere in civil affairs, nor the 
State in ecclesiastical. The spiritual power has not to busy 
itself with the affairs of republics and kingdoms, nor with the 
temporal causes in the whole world ; for these the civil power 
has to care, and as regards them it is the highest power and in- 
dependent of the Church, provided these temporal matters do 
not themselves become opposed to the divine law.’! But for 
this limitation the liberty of conscience guaranteed to each 
Catholic citizen by modern constitutions? would be violated, a 
grave injustice would be done, and the well-being of the State 
itself endangered. The words of St. Bernard addressed to the 
French King Louis VII. are still true: ‘ When the rulers of 
the earth make no opposition to the divine law, then is it that 
they hold their kingdoms and their rights entire and with full 
power.’8 

1 Phillips, Kirchenrecht, vol. ii. § 109, pp. 520, 521. 

? In this way modern Constitutions conform to those religious require- 
ments which are of a negative kind; i.e. that the State must command. 
nothing which the Church must forbid, nor forbid what the Church must 


command. Cf. §. Thom. 1, 2, q. 1, a. 4; q. 96, a. 2. 
3 §. Bern. Ep. 256, c. i. p. 462. 


§ 5. 

Juridical independence is essential to the State. There 
should exist within it no right of independent individual re- 
dress. No opposition to the final decision of its supreme courts 
should have any legal force. In the province which belongs to 
it no other power should issue commands. But this juridical 
independence does not exclude a wide moral dependence, 
which always exists and operates in various ways.! ‘ The legis- 
lator,’ says Walter, ‘must be conscious that he never stands 
upon a quite independent footing, from which he can proceed 
as he will; for the actual circumstances, the customs, the spirit 
of the nation, limit his power in all directions.’ With regard 
to those sins which, being outwardly recognisable, can be made 
penal offences, it is not to be decided offhand whether they 


The Teaching of Theologians. Gy, 





ought to be made such ; but this depends on how far religion, 
morality, and law are merged together by the nation we may be 
regarding ; and this again depends on the degree of civilisation 
it has reached.3 The exercise of the State authority to protect 
public morality is by no means to be gainsaid ;* but it has 
‘a limit from the fact that outward force cannot reach the con- 
science and the dispositions of heart, on which morality ulti- 
mately depends. These dispositions are determined by our free 
will, led by the intellect, which apprehends morality. This 
apprehension is the result of the right use of our religious and 
moral faculties, and thus is the product of purely spiritual 
operations. Moreover to keep it alive and vigorous is the 
special care of the Church. Consequently the State has not to 
enjoin under pains and penalties the performance of moral 
actions unless they are also duties of justice ;* for if they are 
done under compulsion they lose their meritorious character.’® 
Every State is morally dependent to a great degree upon 
the circumstances in which it is placed: its climate and geo- 
graphical position; its commerce, industry, and scientific ac- 
quirements ; the peculiarities of its provinces and of the races 
under its dominion ; the development of the neighbouring coun- 
tries and its treaties with them ; lastly, public opinion and the 
state of civilisation in general. Who will deny that at least in 
equal measure it is morally dependent upon the religious ideas 
of its inhabitants, and upon ecclesiastical institutions? Religion 
has always exercised great influence upon nations, and through 
them upon governments. In proportion to its extent and 
activity every religious body has exercised an indirect authority 
over the government of the State. This influence, however 
great in ordinary times, does not, since it is purely moral and 
not juridical, make any change in the natural rights of the civil 
power, but only keeps it in check, and puts before it a certain 


* We may explain that moralists divide duties into duties of love 
(officia caritatis) and duties of justice (officia justitiae). The former, such 
as the duty of prayer, of gratitude, or of filial affection, are uncompulsory. 
The latter, such as the duty to pay our debts, or abstain from assaulting 
or insulting others, are compulsory. [TR. ] 


VOL. I. Cc 


18 The Holy See and Civil Allegiance. 





character which its entire course of action should assume. On 
her side the Church can only exercise a moral influence in so 
far as she gains the support of public opinion. This she can 
only do by moderation and by keeping her claims within the 
limits set by justice. She can only conquer when the goodwill 
of the faithful is on her side, and when they are borne up by 
the conviction of the justice of her cause.’ This is really the 
foundation of the doctrine of the indirect power of the Church 
over temporal affairs. ‘This power can exist, even if the civil 
rulers be unwilling, in the case when they are in contest with 
the Church and public opinion is against them.’§ For that side 
conquers to which public opinion is favourable. So true is 
this that those States which pay no regard to the Church, but 
give themselves up to the dictates of Liberalism, only act thus 
because they believe that public opinion supports and requires 
such principles. In truth a direct and really despotic power is 
exercised in our modern States by rationalism or so-called free 
thought ; that is, by those men of science whose motto is: ‘ La 
science, c’est moi.’ And the civil power is less averse to their 
influence, because they reject the immutable principles of reli- 
gion and morality, which are after all the only safeguards of 
liberty. 

1 Beidtel, Das Canonische Recht, p. 23 seq. 55. 

? Walter, Naturrecht und Politik, § 390, p. 363. 

2 Ibid. § 415, p. 392. 

* Pignatelli, Consult. can. t. ii. cons. 56, pp. 112, 113, n. 11-21. 

5 Walter, l.c. § 447, pp. 428, 429. 

6 Though not allowing religion to be the formal ground of any political 
rights, the State ‘must always pay it regard as influencing the conduct of 
the citizens in their private legal relations, and as a source of social forms. 
and social dignity; just as the State has to pay regard to money and 
credit.’ Von Moy, in the Archiv fiir Kathol. Kirchenrecht, vol. xii. pp. 
65, 66. 


’ Beidtel, 1l.c. pp. 55, 584 seq. 356 seq. 
8 Ibid. p. 350. 
§ 6. 


No State authority can claim to be absolutely boundless. 
False, then, is the 39th proposition condemned in the Syllabus ;} 
for it asserts that the State is the origin and the source of all 


The Teaching of Theologians. 19 





rights (God alone is this), and that it possesses rights cireum- 
scribed by no limits. The State is finite, and nothing finite is 
without limits. The State has external physical limits in its 
geographical boundaries; and internal moral limits in the nature 
and aim of its existence. ‘Inthe very notion of the State,’ says 
F. Walter, ‘considered as an association of reasonable moral 
beings, is contained a moral limitation of its power. This must 
be recognised or rather presupposed by every form of government 
that is not to be unworthy of the human race. Power is not 
its own end, but is for the general good. Every constitution is 
bound to make this moral limitation actively felt throughout its 
whole organisation; and this cannot be done merely by external 
forms. It is essential to the welfare of the State that this moral 
limitation of its power should be thus felt. Where it is want- 
ing, power becomes arbitrary and self-interested ; and govern- 
ment, as we can see, not in monarchies only, but also in republics, 
becomes despotism.”? 

But this brings us to more general considerations.3 The 
great conservative* principle, in opposition to that of revolution- 
ists, is, that everywhere and under all circumstances the rights of 
all be respected—the rights that in the particular State have 
gradually developed in accordance with revealed and natural law. 
The State that follows this principle does not cut itself off from 
its past history in favour of abstract theories: it builds not on 
new but on the old foundations. A Conservative can approve of 
no law that violates this principle. And as it is the civil power 
which has to protect, enforce, and develop the various rights and 
obligations of all its subjects, it would fail, according to the 
conservative principle, to fulfil this its proper end, if it deserted 
the path of organic legal development—that is, if it made laws 
in doctrinaire fashion, without regard to the history of the com- 
munity. It can only fulfil its end if it regards its authority, not 
as a right that cancels all other rights existing among its sub- 
jects, but merely as one (though it may be the highest) among 
many other rights. Consequently (according to the conserva- 
tive principle) the right of the civil power is limited by various 

* On the terms ‘ Liberal’ and ‘ Conservative,’ see Introduction. [TR.] 


20 The Floly See and Cit Allegiance. 





rights existing in the community.** The subjects can demand 
that the civil power respect their rights, while they are bound in 
their turn to respect the rights of the civil power—that is, they 
are bound to be subject and cbedient to it, so that it may be 
able to fulfil its mission, which is both its duty and its right.® 
This mutual relation of rights and duties between sovereign and 
subject is what St. Paul refers to (Rom. xiii. 1-8, Eph. vi. 1-9), 
and which in German law is called ‘Treue’ (loyalty). When 
subject and sovereign both fulfil their obligations, then there is 
said to be ‘ Friede’ (peace). From this point of view, disloyalty 
can occur on one side as well as on the other, and the sovereign 
just as much as the subject can be conceived as disloyal and dis- 
turbing the peace. Quite in contrast, the revolutionary prin- 
ciple develops the State on an abstract system, without regard 
to the history and traditions of the particular country. In con- 
sequence, all existing laws and institutions which will not square 
with the abstract principle of government that has been adopted 
are swept away, and no personal rights of the subjects, that the 
State is bound to respect, are any longer recognised: only 
shadows of rights and of the holders of rights remain—shadows 
that disappear as soon as the State with its all-absorbing right 
ceases to regard them. Here all mutual relation of rights and 
duties between subject and sovereign is at an end: the State 
alone is active, the subject is passive, and he only becomes ac- 
tive in so far as, putting off the quality of subject, he becomes 
himself a part of the sovereign power.® 

1 The proposition is: ‘ Reipublicae status, ut pote omnium jurium origo 
et fons, jure quodum pollet nullis circumscripto limitibus.’ It is extracted 
from the Allocution ‘Maxima,’ of June 9, 1862, where we read: ‘ Omnia 


. ... legitimae cujusque proprietatis jura invadere, destruere contendunt, 
ac praeterea animo et cogitatione confingunt jus quoddam nullis circum- 





* Here has been omitted the following passage: ‘ Subject eines Rechtes 
aber ist immer entweder eine Person oder ein zum Dienste der Person ste- 
hendes, dezhalb mit Personenrecht ausgestattetes Institut. Indem nun 
das Recht des Staates an dem Rechte der Person seine Schranke hat, hat 
es seine Schranke an der Person, am Unterthanen selbst.’ The omission 
does not injure the text; and to have made the passage intelligible, a 
lengthy note or lengthy paraphrase would have been needful, [TR.] 


The Teaching of Theologians. 21 





scriptum limitibus, quo reipublicae statum pollere existimant, quem omnium 
jurium originem et fontem esse temere arbitrantur.’ This is the theory 
called by Liberatore (La Chiesa e lo Stato, Napoli, 1871, c. i. p. 1 seq.) 
absolute Liberalism. 

2 Walter, Naturrecht und Politik, § 257, p. 234. 

3 IT am here following the excellent Catholic political writer, C. N. G. 
Rintel, Der Protestantismus als politisches Princip. Breslau, 1853, p. 15. 

+ Guizot, de l’Eglise, p. 167: ‘Le caractére essentiel de l’esprit chré- 
tien est la respect de la régle et du droit, de tous les droits, des droits de 
Dieu comme des droits de lhomme, des droits des gouvernements comme 
des droits des peuples, des droits du passé comme des droits de l’avenir. 
Le caractére dominant et permanent de l’esprit révolutionnaire est au con- 
traire la passion, tant6t la passion de la licence, tantdt la passion d’une 
idée fixe et exclusive, devant laquelle s’évanouissent tous les droits qui 
la génent et 4 laquelle tous les moyens sont bons pour se satisfaire.’ 

5 Rintel, l.c. p. 16. 

® Rintel, l.c. pp. 17, 18. 


§ 7. 

But the power of the Church is also limited,! and in such a 
way as to prevent her using it to the injury of the State. The 
Church cannot abolish free-will; she can devise no plan for 
forcing all men to obey her; she cannot compel us to internal 
conviction or to external submission. ‘The whole power of 
the Church,’ says the Jesuit, M. Liberatore,? ‘is moral ; she pos- 
sesses the means of coercion only virtually, in so far as she has 
the right to demand them from the civil power, which is subor- 

dinate to her. Hence there is an almost absolute impossibility 
of abuse, and for two reasons: first, because having herself need 
of the protection of the civil power against the violators of her 
laws and disturbers of her peace, she is lead by the nature of her 
situation to pay scrupulous regard to the rights of the civil 
power, and.rather surrenders to it what is hers than takes from 
it what is not hers; secondly, because the moral power with 
which alone the Church is formally endowed derives all its 
strength from the evidence of its justice. Consequently the 
Church always takes her stand on evident justice ; and she could 
never think of making claims which could be proved to be unjust. 
Thus all things which evidently belong to the State, as matters 
which are purely civil and pdlitical, are quite safe from any 
danger of invasion by the ecclesiastical power.’ If in doubtful 


22 The Holy See and Civil Allegiance. 





and disputed matters the question is about a general rule—a 
question of principle—it is clear to a Catholic that the Church, 
as teacher of truth and justice, cannot fall into error. If the 
question, however, is about the application of a principle, here 
the Church can claim no infallibility, and by her whole position is 
compelled to give full weight to the grounds adduced by the oppos- 
ing party ; and here in fact she has always shown, salvis principiis, 
the most compliant disposition. We must also remember that 
in these cases the State, on its side, can meet half-way the ad- 
vances of the Church, and that even supposing it has to put up 
with some grievance unredressed, this is a minor evil compared 
to a conflict with the Church, and the consequent scandal and 
disquiet among the faithful. So stands the case where the State 
is founded on justice, and desires to deal justly with every single 
citizen. It is otherwise where a faction rules, which seeks at 
all hazards to trample down a Catholic minority; for here, in 
spite of pompous protestations of liberty, the government is a 
sheer despotism. 


! Audisio, Droit public de l’Eglise, traduit par Labis, Louvain, 1864, 
t. i. p. 8307: ‘Dieu seul, 4 proprement parler, ne reléve que de lui-méme. 
L’Eglise et Etat, étant ses dependances, et comme deux provinces ou 
départements de son gouvernement Wici-bas, n’ont qu’une autonomie non 
pas absolue, mais relative.’ 

2 La Chiesa elo Stato, c. i. a. 8, pp. 113, 114. 

3 Cardinal Gonsalvi, Note of Aug. 10, 1819. Cardinal Antonelli, Note 
of 29 Feb. 1860. 

* Liberatore, Le. pp. 114, 115. 


§ 8. 

The Christian (Catholic) State, now indeed no longer existent, 
has, then, nothing to fear from the theological doctrine ofthe supe- 
riority of the Church, deduced from reason and the Fathers; while 
the States which give no preference to any form of Christianity, 
and still more those hostile to Christianity, have long taken good 
care that this doctrine shall in no form have any practical im- 
portance. ‘The bond of union between Church and State,’ says 
a recent theologian,! ‘has so suffered through the unhappy divi- 
sion of faith in the sixteenth century, that a complete union of 
the two powers, such as their nature requires, is no longer to be 


The Teaching of Theologians. 23 





thought of. The Church, indeed, true to her mission, can never 
alter her conduct towards the State ; but with the aforesaid divi- 
sion of faith, the position of the State to the Church must be 
changed. Whilst all the members of the State still honoured 
the Church as the guardian of the true faith and morality, the 
State itself was able to give to her doctrines of faith and morality 
a positive recognition, that is, to make them the base of its own 
conduct, especially of its legislation. This could not go on when 
in the same State several religions were recognised ; and now we 
must be content if the State gives a negative recognition to the 
doctrines of the Church, that is, if it keep from violating them, 
and thus give its support to the operations of the Church.’ The 
natural and immediate end of the State is the protection of 
rights; its remoter end, the temporal felicity of its members. 
The civil government has no competitor in its office of protect- 
ing the whole society and its members both from internal and 
external attacks.2 Von Moy well says :* ‘Since Christianity 
has set a supernatural end to our life on earth, and Christ has 
founded the Church for this end, it inevitably follows, at least 
for those who recognise this end and this Church, that they are 
bound to bring the order of this earthly life into harmony with 
its supernatural end, and, at least in this regard, not to place 
_ themselves in opposition to the Church.4 This conclusion applies 
to all earthly aims and all earthly institutions ; and those who 
recognise the aforesaid supernatural end and supernatural Church 
are all, in whatsoever earthly situation they may be, bound by 
the aforesaid obligation. Christianity and the Church may or 
may not be recognised ; but the rational conclusion from a re- 
cognition of them cannot be controverted. Aslong, then, as the 
Christian faith universally prevailed, and the Church was uni- 
versally regarded as an institution founded by Christ for the 
salvation of men, disputes could indeed arise between the Pope 
and the Emperor, between bishops and civil princes, about par- 
ticular rights and obligations ; but the end of the State, as well 
as of all the things of earth, could not be opposed to the end of 
the Church : the temporal order of things could not be opposed 
to the ecclesiastical order of things, as altogether independent 


24 The Floly See and Cwil Allegiance. 





and simply an end in itself. Nor again, as had happened in 
heathen times, could Church and State be merged into one ; but 
they remained rationally united. The Church could no longer 
identify herself with any State or any civil order; but every 
State found in her a source of elevation and consecration for its 
earthly efforts and institutions, and a healing balsam for the 
necessities from which they sprang. All this has been changed 
by the Reformation,’ which recognised, indeed, the supernatural 
end that had been given to ourearthly life by Christianity, but re- 
jected the Divine institution of the Church, with her sacerdotal 
and teaching office.® The work of the Church was thus transferred 
to the State, and the Church made an institution of the State. 
Religion became at once a serviceable instrument in politics : 
and this occurred not merely in Protestant, but also in Catholic 
countries ; for the need of protection against the violence and 
encroachments of Protestantism gave such great prominence to 
the civil sword and State authority, and made the position of the 
tulers of the Church so difficult, that even in Catholic countries. 
the State grievously encroached on the religious domain.’ This 
abuse was formally erected into a system, and called in France, 
Gallicanism ; in Germany, Febronianism or Josephism ; in Spain 
and Portugal, Pombalism. It was a system of hypocrisy and 
meanness, and its results were soon evident. In the Protestant 
States the Reformation continued its work of disintegration ; 
and the break up into a multitude of sects at length rendered it 
impossible for the governments to continue their ecclesiastical 
dominion : in the Catholic States the depreciation and misuse of 
all that was most holy, the insubordination of the powerful and 
the powerlessness of the clergy, shook the faith of the masses, and 
in a great measure wholly destroyed that of the upper classes. 
This led to the French Revolution, which rejected Christianity 
and Church alike, and set up the State anew as an institution 
reposing simply on human wills, and existing simply for this life 
and for earthly ends. This is the ‘‘modern State,” according to 
the pattern of which all other States of Europe have gradually 
transformed themselves, and made its constitution and principles 
their own. When it first arose it made a vigorous attempt to 


The Teaching of Theolograns. 25 





extirpate Christianity, and a weak attempt to create a heathen 
religion® as a support for itself. As both failed, it had to allow 
Christianity to exist, but only as a matter of personal taste and 
individual opinion'’—only as a form, in itself indifferent of reli- 
gious views, having no claim whatever to political influence or 
recognised legal position. This is the modern principle of “ free- 
dom of conscience” which is as necessarily and essentially con-: 
nected with the modern State as the idea of the finite with that 
of the infinite.’ 


1 Reinerding, ‘ Der Ursprung und die Grinzen der St. Gewalt,’ in the 
Archiv fiir Kath. Kirchenrecht, vol. xiv. pp. 191, 192. 

2 Idem, Archiv, vol. xiii. p. 378 seq. 

3 Der moderne Staat und die Kath. Kirche: Archiv, vol. xii. p. 62. 

* See Suarez, de Leg. vol. iii. p. 7. 

5 Bluntschli, in Sybel’s Histor. Zeitschrift, 1861, vol. i. p. 83, recalls 
the heretics from Arnold of Brescia to Wiclif and Huss, who represented 
the national idea. The national-political movement played a great part 
in the Reformation, though the Reformers were scarcely aware of it. 

6 Bluntschli, l.c. pp. 83, 84, says: ‘ The Reformers did not indeed re- 
nounce the idea of a community of the faithful, but they willingly swb- 
ordinated to the State the external manifestation of the Church, and recog- 
nised in the State also a moral nature and end (but this had not been 
previously denied). To the State exclusively they attributed all power of 
compulsion, and consequently all legislation, government, and jurisdiction. 
The Protestant State was not yet fully emancipated from theological doc- 
trines, but fully from the rule of the Church. In its essence it was a first 
attempt, as yet indistinct, after the modern State, which finally has freed 
itself from denominational limitations and the authority of theology.’ 

7 The Catholic princes who had done good service to the Church at the 
time of the Reformation, and who had received from her in consequence 
great privileges, soon assumed the character of her guardians, and in this 
way pushed the power of the State beyond its former limits. 

8 Though this state of things came about in most Catholic countries, its 
characteristic was abandonment and persecution of Catholicism. It is 
hard to understand the reproach directed (by Schulte, vol. ii. p. 16) against 

e Church and the Holy See, that the Revolution is permanently installed 
in Catholic countries. Decatholicised and dechristianised States are no 
longer Catholic. Under the revolutionary governments of Spain, Mexico, 
and Italy, the Pope and faithful Catholics have received only ill-treatment, 
and more of it than any one else. 

® On August 10 and November 10, 1793. 

10 This is the view of the Revue des Deux Mondes, Avril et Mai 1869, 
see espec. p. 701. 

§ 9. 


Two theories especially have gained prevalence outside the 


26 The Holy See and Civil Allegiance. 





Church. One identifies or at least merges together Church and 
State, causing the former to be absorbed by the latter, and de- 
siring the State to be raised into a god and worshipped. The 
other theory desires the two to be separated, but only in such a 
manner that the Church may be subordinated to the State. The 
first theory has found especial support among the followers of 
Hegel. It is maintained by Laurent, who rejects the notion of 
the Church even as an independent spiritual power, and dis- 
solves it into the State, which indeed he would have limited 
by the sovereignty of individuals and by private law.t The 
second theory, however, seems the most prevalent. According to 
Bluntschli,? ‘Our century aspires after the separation, not the 
mingling of the two provinces ; and his formula is: External 
superiority of the State over the Church, and internal equality 
of these two moral persons.? It is not quite clear which of the 
two theories is to gain the upper hand in Germany ; perhaps 
Hegel’s notion of the State will first become realised, and in- 
augurate a witches’ Sabbath, out of which the second theory will 
be able to develop. However this may be, both theories are 
equally opposed to the Catholic Church; she is universal, and 
thus cannot be identified with any single State ; her aim ex- 
tends far beyond earthly existence ; she knows that though she 
is distinct from the State, it is not God’s will for her to be sepa- 
rated from it; she knows that she is a perfect society,* with her 
own particular end and means and field of operations, and that 
she cannot subordinate to any earthly end her supernatural end. 
A perfect society is one which is neither part of another, nor 
from the nature of its end falling within the province of an- 
other.’ Both the theories we have mentioned have sought to 
deny to the Church the character of a perfect society, of an in- 
dependent existence, or of a kingdom. Thus the Protestant 
jurist, Samuel Pufendorf,® held the following view: ‘If we 
assume the independence of the Church a double sovereignty is 
introduced, since under the pretence of deciding disputes men 
can be held in subjection just as well as by commands relative to 
civil conduct ; since, further, a spiritual chief, unless he confine 
himself to imitating our Lord in preaching and doing works of 


The Teaching of Theologians. 27 





mercy, and submits patiently to everything,’ must be able to 
carry out the judgments he pronounces; and this again entails a 
double sovereignty, or if the carrying out is transferred to the 
State, the latter is degraded into being the servant or bailiff of 
the Church ;° it follows that the Church should only be a sub- 
ordinate society within the State; (a ‘collegium’ instead of a 
‘societas perfecta.’)? Such views were elaborated in many works 
of the last century,!° and the ecclesiastical authority became 
step by step so narrowed as to be reduced to a mere shadow. 
The State desired to be allinall. ‘Since the Reformation,’ says 
a modern jurist,!! ‘the right of supremacy over ecclesiastical 
affairs (jus majestatis circa sacra) became an integral portion 
of the conception of the modern State. This brings about the 
enslavement of the Church, making constantly more firm the 
chain whereby the State holds her fast. Her constitution, her 
internal organisation, her power of jurisdiction, all that con- 
cerns the education of the clergy—nay, even matters of science, 
of faith, and of ritual—all these become subject not merely to 
the protestation or inspection (jus reprehendendi, cavendi, in- 
spiciendi, placetum), but also to the direction of the State (jus 
dirigendi).12 Thus the positions of Church and State have 
been quite changed, and the words of the old writer Goffridus 
have come true: “ Ifthe Church is subjected to the civil power, 
she who was before a mistress will become a slave.”!* In truth, 
the absolutist doctrine of the State, making it not merely the 
highest but the only factor of all development, the one source of 
every right and every security,!* leaves no room for the exist- 
ence of an independent Church, which would he incompatible 
with it, and only admits religious associations with the rights of 
corporations.’ ‘This rejection of all ecclesiastical independence 
is, indeed, here and there softened down in its practical applica- 
tion, and the Church can often be content if her rights as a cor- 
poration are respected and protected ; but she can never regard 
as a true doctrine that which disregards her divine origin and 
divine rights. 


1 Bluntschli, l.c. p. 85 seq. 
2 Ibid. p. 87. 


28 The Holy See and Civil Allegiance. 





3 Ibid. p. 88. Bluntschli allows the similitude of marriage between the 
two, provided the State (l’état rather than respublica, civitas, imperium— 
the State in the modern rather than in the old sense) be taken as the hus- 
band, the Church as the wife. 

4 Syllabus, prop. 19, from the Allocution of Dec. 9, 1854, Dec. 17, 1860, 
June 9, 1862. 

5 §. Thom. Sum. 1, 2, qu. 90, a. 3, ad 3. 

6 Samuel Pufendorf, de habitu religionis Christiane ad vitam civilem, 
§ 11, p. 33, ed. Brem. 1687, will not allow that the Church is a status, a 
summo imperio civili separatus vel exemptus. By status he means a 
conjunctio plurium hominum, quae imperio per homines administrato sibi 
proprio et aliunde non dependente continetur. Cf. § 32, p.100; also Joh. 
Heineccius, Element. jur. natur. et gent. 1. ii. n. 183 seq. t. i. p. ii. Opp. 

7 The proposition of M. A. de Dominis, de rep. Christ. 1. i. ¢c. i. n. 13: 
‘What Christ on earth in mortal frame visibly practised, that, and that 
alone, did He commission men His servants to practise; and what in mortal 
body He did not practise visibly, that He did not intrust to mortals, and 
was bound not to intrust it, but to reserve it to Himself as head and 
master,’ was styled in 1618 by the Cologne theological faculty the here- 
tical foundation of the heresy which De Dominis afterwards developed fur- 
ther (Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collect. Judie. t. iii. p. ii. p. 194), and which 
also ex negatione violentae dominationis deduces a negatio legitimae 
potestatis (ibid. p. 195). 

8 Pufendorf, l.c. § 35, p. 116 seq. Just the same language is now used 
against the Catholic Church. They say, for example, that Bavaria has 
two governments, one at Rome, the other at Munich. 

® Ibid. § 39, p. 130 seq. This is further developed by Justus Henning 
Bohmer, Jur. Parochial. § i. ¢. i. ii. iii., and Jur. Eccles. Protest. 1. i. 
tit. 33, n. 8. 

10 One of these was called: Principes sur l’essence, la distinction et les 
limites des deux puissances, spirituelle et temporelle. Ouvrage posthume 
du Pére La Borde de l’Oratoire. It was forbidden by the Roman Inqui- 
sition, August 5, 1753, and Benedict XIV. warned the bishops of Poland 
against it, as it was much spread there. Roscovdny, Mon. t. iii. pp. 154- 
156, n. 473. 

1 Hiibler, in Dove’s Zeitschrift fiir Kirchenrecht, 1863, vol. iii. p. 418- 

2 Hiibler here refers to Bluntschli, Allgem. Staatsrecht, vol. ii. p. 373 
seq., and to the Church laws of Baden and Wiirtemberg in 1860 and 1862. 

13 Goffrid. Opuse. iv.; Sirmond. Opp. iii. 589: ‘ Quando vero Ecclesia 
seculari potestati subjicitur, quae ante domina erat, ancilla efficitur.’ 

1# Hiibler here refers to Aegidi (Erlanger, Theol.Ztschr. N.F,vol. xxxvi.), 
and Hermann (Meszner’s Evang. K. Ztz. 1859). 


§ 10. 
Where, however, modern States exist with ‘ freedom of con- 
science,’ and several religious denominations with equal rights, 
it is impossible fully to carry out the principles of the Church. 


The Teaching of Theologians. 29 





Rules for a society in good health cannot be-applied in a society 
that is sick. ‘ We may still hold,’ says Von Moy,! ‘as unnatural 
and unreasonable the complete disregard by the modern State 
of every aim of life that goes beyond man’s existence on earth, 
especially as it is really a practical denial of the immortality of 
the soul ; none the less, we must recognise it as a fact which 
we are not able to alter; nay, we must even admit that in conse- 
quence of our. present religious divisions there is a certain neces- 
sity and justification for it, and for the consequent position of 
the State. For it is the position which, through the Reforma- 
tion in Germany, was prepared for the emperor and empire by 
the treaty of Westphalia, and which by the consequences of that 
treaty became common to all governments, and acted in favour 
of all creeds. The right of dissidents to migrate into a country 
where their own religion prevailed (jus eundi in partes) was 
a natural consequence. But further, the right which was claimed 
and maintained against the emperor by the German princes to 
determine at pleasure the creed of themselves and their subjects, 
can with equal reason be claimed by every father of a family or 
independent citizen against his own government; and in imme- 
diate connection with this is the right in matters of conscience 
to be independent of any vote of a majority in a political assem- 
bly.’ A Catholic, as Von Moy shows, has a right in every 
State to—1. free intercourse with the Pope and the bishops as 
to ecclesiastical affairs ; 2. free profession of his faith by word 
or writing ; 3. free exercise of worship and satisfaction of his 
religious needs both within and without the sacred edifices ; 
4. free pursuit of Catholic moral teaching, especially as to mar- 
riage, education, works of charity, and religious associations ; 
5. free disposition of property for ecclesiastical purposes. But 
the influence of the Church on temporal matters, as exercised in 
the Middle Ages, is impracticable in modern States, unless all 
dissidents were freely to embrace the Catholic faith, and the 
civil power itself were to desire the exercise of this influence. 
But there is not the least appearance of this happening. 
Nevertheless, we must always and everywhere hold fast the 
great truth inseparable from Christianity, that the salvation of 


30 The Floly See and Civil Allegiance. 





the soul ranks far above all earthly goods; that the kingdom of 
God is above the kingdom of the world—the spiritual above the 
temporal. From Scripture and the early Church comes the truth 
that the supernatural end must take precedence of any other. 


1 Der moderne Staat und die Katholische Kirche, pp. 63, 64. 


Part II. THe DeEcLARATIONS OF THE POPES GIVE NO CAUSE FOR 
APPREHENSION. 


§ 1. Nothing defined as to the power of the Church over temporal matters. 
§ 2. The Bull‘ Unam sanctam.’ § 3. Further objections. § 4. Ap- 
probation of the Bull by the Fifth Council of the Lateran. § 5. Utter- 
ances on ecclesiastical immunities. § 6. The Bull ‘ Cum ex apostolatus 
officio.’ § 7. Further objections. § 8. The Bull‘ Cum quorumdam.’ 
§ 9. The Bull ‘In coena Domini.’ § 10. Other Bulls also irrelevant- 
§ 11. The Schema as to the Church that was laid before the Vatican 
Council. § 12. Canons in this Schema on the relation of Church and 
State. § 13. The three last chapters of the Schema. § 14. Confusion 
of ideas among our opponents. 


ch 

The Church has never declared it to be an article of faith 
that temporal princes, as such, are in temporal matters subject 
to the Pope.! Individual theologians, as Bellarmine and Suarez, 
have indeed held it to be a dogma that in certain cases they are 
subject ;? but these theologians held Papal Infallibility to be also: 
a dogma; and just as their opinion on the latter point does not: 
prove that Papal Infallibility was a really defined dogma before 
the decision of July 18, 1870, so their opinion on the former 
point does not prove that the power of the Church over temporal 
matters is a dogma before a decision has been published ; and 
this has not yet taken place.* 

1 Cardinal Du Perron, Replic. 1. iv. p. 745. Cf. Bossuet, Defens. Dis- 
sert. Praev. § 89, p.75. Natalis Alexander, Hist. Eccl. §§ 13, 14, Diss. ix. 
a.7, n. 4, t. xvi. p. 350, ed. Bing. Bossuet, Defensio Declar. 1. i. § 1, ¢. xi- 
p. 108: ‘ Placet autem hic in antecessum expromere .. . . Gregorium VII. 
aliosve Pontifices . .. . nunquam decreto ad omnem Ecclesiam edito 
docuisse, eam sententiam, quae ecclesiasticae potestati talia vindicaret, ad 
integritatem fidei Catholicae aut ecclesiastici dogmatis pertinere. .. .Quare 
etiam ii, qui pontificiam infallibitatem vel maxime tuentur, ab hac sen- 


tentia abhorrere deque his, ut et de aliis pontificium gestis, libere disputare 
possunt.’ Cf. 1. ili. c. xxiv. p. 326 seq.,c.i. seq. p. 272 seq. Pey, De l’Au- 


The Declarations of the Popes. at 





.torité des deux Puissances, Strassbourg, 1780, vol. i. p. 91: ‘Les Papes: 
eux-mémes dans les décrets, ou ils s’efforgaient d’établir leur prétentions,,. 
n’ont jamais rien défini express¢ment la-dessus.’ Fleury, Hist. Ecclés.. 
t. xix. 1. 90, n. 18. Gosselin, op. cit. ii, p. 293 seq. Bianchi, t.i. 1. i. § 21,. 
n.1, p. 184. Mamachi, op. cit. t. iv. p.244. John Trithemius, Chron. Hir- 
saug.ad annum1106. Martin Gerbert, of St. Blase, de legitima Ecclesiae 
potestate circa sacra et profana: typis monasterii 8. Blasii, 1761, 1. iv.. 
c.i. n. 12, p. 637 seq. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, vol. ii. § 116, p. 627- 
Beidtel, Das Canonische Recht, p. 360. Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore, 
Lectures on the Evidences of Catholicity, 4th edit. 1866, pp. 377, 378. 

2 Quoted by Dollinger, Erwiigungen fiir die Bischéfe des Concils, 
Miinchen, 1869, p. 13, § 19. 

* So also Covaruvias, t. i. Relect. c. peccatum de R. J. in 6, p. ii. § 9, 
n.7, says: ‘Hactenus nihil certum in hac controversia Ecclesia Catholica 
definivit ; propterea disputationilocus est absque ulla haereseos suspicione.” 
He then cites a number of older writers. Similarly Navarrus, in c. Novit.. 
de Judie. vol. ii. p. 1, n. 3, &c., cited by Caron, Remonstrantia Hibernorum,,. 
Palin Gsax. p91: 

§ 2. 


Great efforts indeed have been made to discover such a deci-- 
sion, and the Bull ‘ Unam sanctam’ of Boniface VIII. has been 
brought forward as such. But in this Bull it is only defined 
that all must give the due religious obedience to the Pope, not: 
obedience in purely temporal matters.2_ One sentence alone is- 
marked out as a definition of the Church by the words: ‘ We: 
declare, define, and proclaim.’ All the rest of the Bull is no de- 
finition. And we must, as before observed, in every doctrinal 
decision of the Pope or General Council, distinguish between 
the definition itself, and the grounds or reasons alleged for 
it. Only the definition itself is infallible. This is no new dis- 
tinction, but one that has ever been well known to theologians 
and canonists, and also to the Roman Court.* The reasons al- 
leged are doubtless often of great importancejfor rightly under- 
standing the particular question, but they have not the same 
binding force. It is thus no contradiction to this view (as the 
Allgemeine Zeitung of May 6, 1871, asserted), that Bishop 
Fessler blamed Schulte’s book for citing the decisions of the 
Vatican Council without the reasons prefixed by the Council ; 
for precisely these reasons serve to remove many misunder- 
standings about the decision itself. 

1 By ‘ Janus,’ Déllinger, Schulte, and others. 


ey! The Holy See and Crit Allegiance. 





2 Pey, l.c.: ‘Boniface VIII. termine sa Bulle ‘‘ Unam sanctam”’ contre 
Philippe le Bel par la maxime, qu’aucun Catholique ne conteste, savoir 
que tous les fidéles doivent étre soumis au Souverain Pontife de nécessité 
de salut, mais sans définir, qu’on doive lui étre soumis méme sur les ma- 
tiéres temporelles.’ See Walter, Kirchenrecht, § 44, p. 81, n. 15, 11th ed. 
Phillips, Kirchenrecht, vol. iii. p. 256. Rintel, Der Protestantismus als 
politische Princep. Breslau, 1853, pp. 105, 106. Merkle, in the Augsburg 
Pastoralblatt, 21 May 1870, who cites Fénélon, de Auct. Rom. Pont. c. xxvii. 
I have treated the Bull in detail in the work Ueber das Vaticanische Concil. 
Mainz, pp. 36-45. 

3 In the work mentioned in the previous note I have cited the Domi- 
nican bishop Melchior Canus, Bellarmine, Suarez, the Franciscan Bianchi, 
the Capuchin J. A. Benettis, the canonist Berardi, Pope Gregory XVI. (as 
Maurus Cappellari), Francis Veronius, Montagne, De la Hogue, Carriére, 
Gosselin, Pey, Beidtel, Wieser—truly a good number of important writers. 
We may add to them the Gallican Natalis Alexander, who says (H. E. 
§ 13, 14, Dissert. ix. art. 2, n. 16, t. xvi. p. 331, ed. Bing.): ‘ Cujus 
(Bonif. VIII. in Bulla Unam sanctam) argumentis assentiri non tenemur, 
quamvis Ecclesiae Rom. ceterarum matri et magistrae in decretis fidei et 
morum non parere sit nefas.’ And more fully he says (ibid. a. 7, n. 3, 
p. 349) : ‘ Bonif. in prooemio ac prolusione, ut ita loquamur, definitionis 
suae ut homo ratiocinatur et Scripturam exponit; nihil humauni ab ipso 
alienum putamus..... In fine diplomatis § Porro pronunciat ut pontifez, 
doctrinam Scriptura sacra et traditione contentam, a Rom.-et universali 
Keclesia semper assertam velut dogma fidei Christianis universis proponit. 
“*Porro,”’ inquit, ‘‘subesse Rom. pontifici . . . . esse de necéssitate salutis.” 
Quod et nos ut dogma fidei recipimus, credimus, docemus, et praedicamus, 
de subjectione Christianorum omnium et singulorum, etiam regum et im- 
peratorum, summo Pontifici jure divino in spiritualibus dumtaxat intel- 
lectum. Atque propter istam conclusionem, quae sola vim definitionis et 
apostolict oraculi proprie habet, sartam tectam hujus constitutionis auc- 
toritatem voluit procul dubio Clemens V.’ 


§ 3. 

It has been objected! that ‘if this were so, it would follow 
that the doctrine of the power of the bishops as an ordinary and 
immediate power has not been dogmatically decided, since in the 
third canon this doctrine is only mentioned in the introduction 
to the real dogmatic decision. Would Bishop Fessler agree to 
this? We believe he would certainly agree ; for the doctrine 
of the power of the bishops needed no definition, being pre- 
viously doubted by no one. The decree only intended to treat 
of the head of the Church; in so doing the doctrine of the 
episcopal power was also recognised, and this was sufficient for 
the purpose in hand. Secondly, it has been said: ‘From 


The Declarations of the Popes. 43 





Bishop Fessler’s assertion it would result that a Pope sitting 
down to write a dogmatic Bull would in one line possess, in the 
next be without, the gift of infallibility, and we should never 
know which of the two had been the case in any given line.’ But 
this we do know perfectly, simply from the wording of the im- 
perative (dispositive) clause. Any tyro in jurisprudence knows 
howto distinguish between the judicial judgment and the grounds 
for the decision, between the dispositivum and the motivum ar- 
resti, as the jurists of the French parliament used to express it.? 
The Popes have ever taken full care, even when they have not 
themselves drawn up the wording of the entire Bull, that the 
doctrine to be held fast (doctrina tenenda) be clearly expressed ~ 
for every one, and they will be able to take the same care in 
future. If they do not, then they will have defined nothing. 
We must also remember that every doctrinal decision has its 
history, and that in the controversies preceding the decision the 
doctrine in question is made clear and prominent ; moreover, 
the freedom of theological opinions allowed by the Church is a 
sure token that this or that point has not yet been deftmed. 
A third objection is that some bishops of the ‘ Opposition’ have 
called this limitation of the definition absurd. But the authority 
of a minority of bishops eager to support their view can cer- 
tainly not decide the matter, unless that view has weighty rea- 
sons in its favour. Our opponents reply that this is the case. 
They say the Pope intended to assert the complete subordination 
in spiritual and temporal matters of the King of France to the 
Holy See, since no one assailed the Pope’s spiritual power. We 
answer that history proves just the reverse, for the Pope in the 
Consistory and the Cardinals in their letter to the French nobles 
expressly guard themselves against the misrepresentation of the 
French statesmen, and against the views they were falsely 
charged with holding. Surely we ought rather to believe the 
Pope, the Cardinals, and the theologians who followed, who had 
a constantly observed rule to guide them, rather than the in- 
triguing Peter de Flotte with his companions, and those who 
had an interest to exaggerate the import of the Pope’s words. 
Outside France the Bull gave no offence, and it was for France 
VOL, I. D 


34 The Holy Sce and Civil Allegiance. 





alone that the thoroughly French Pope, Clement V., in order to 
pacity and appease his countrymen, made the declaration that 
through the said Bull France and its king suffered no prejudice, 
and were not bound to greater obedience to the Roman Church 
than before. It is, however, further objected that in two 
writings of the fourteenth century this Bull is regarded as defin- 
ing the complete subjection of temporal princes to the Pope. But 
the authors of the Defensor Pacis, bitter enemies of the Holy 
See, are no authority, and moreover bring no proofs; while Alva- 
rus Pelagius is an illogical writer,? and moreover considers as de- 
cided merely the question relating to the two swords belonging. 
to the Church.* ‘Still,’ says Professor Huber, ‘allowing Her- 
genrither’s softening down of the Bull, the fact that the Pope 
is authorised to sit in judgment on the civil power as to matters 
of sin leaves a back door open for old theocratic absolutism to. 
come in; for the Popes, who in a concrete case decide what is 
sin, have both in theory and practice asserted over sinful princes 
and magistrates the power of censure even so far as to depose 
them; and this was done not only before the time of Boni- 
face, but long after him.’5 To this we answer: (a) By the 
same mode of argument we can say the principle that the State: 
may interfere in religious matters whenever they at all touch 
on civil life brings with it State absolutism over the Church, 
so that the latter is completely trodden under ; for in individual 
cases the State decides what has regard to civil life, and often 
even claims the entire external side of religious life as within 
its jurisdiction, (b) According to history and existing docu- 
ments the Popes have ‘ asserted over sinful princes and magis- 
trates the power of censure, even so far as to depose them,’ only 
as long as they could presume the continuance of the public law 
which prevailed in Christian Europe throughout the Middle. 
Ages. It was only in the course of the sixteenth century that. 
this public law was everywhere shattered: in the seventeenth 
and eighteenth it was altogether set aside. The Popes had 
still, as they must always have, a right to condemn any Catholic: 
prince who was guilty of grave sins dangerous to religion, even 
though they could no longer inflict a punishment which brought. 


The Declarations of the Popes. | 35 





with it the loss of temporal power, since this was no longer 
a consequence of excommunication. Even the portion of the 
Bull not constituting the definition does not say that the civil 
power in its own sphere, that is, in purely temporal matters, is 
dependent on the spiritual power. As long as the former 
remains purely within its sphere it is independent. But just as 
the modern State claims an influence in religious matters when- 
ever and so far as they touch the civil domain, so the Church 
can claim an influence, or at least a right of judging, on temporal 
matters, whenever they enter on the religious domain, and thus 
cease to be purely temporal. And this, in one form or another, 
she has always done. Boniface VIII. could quite well adduce 
in his Bull the doctrine universally taught in the schools with- 
out making it the subject of a dogmatic decision. (c) No 
mention is made of deposition in the whole Bull, but only of 
passing sentence, which can be done simply by excommuni- 
cating. As a final objection reference is made to the Civilta 
Cattolica, which we are told, in the first number for February 
1870, declared as heretical the doctrine that the State has its 
own province independent of the jurisdiction of the Church. 
But first of all, this Roman periodical, though its zeal and re- 
ligious spirit have gained for it the praise and encouragement of 
the Holy Father, is not decisive as to doctrine, nor is anything 
more than the work of private individuals; and secondly, it 
contains no such declaration as alleged. One of its. articles 
treats of the proposals made in hostility to the Council, and 
especially considers the case of rulers passing laws against the 
definitions of General Councils. Such laws, according to the 
ancient doctrine of the Church, are not binding in conscience. 
They are violations of freedom of conscience. He who believes 
the doctrinal decisions of the Pope are infallible can be com- 
pelled by no law to believe they are fallible. The article pro- 
ceeds to speak of the superiority of the Church in the same 
sense as is used by the Fathers of the Church and the theo- 
logians of all centuries; at the same time it fully recognises that 
the civil power is from God. It moreover distinguishes that 
which Boniface VIII. defined (definisce), namely, that obedience 


36 The Floly See and Crvil Allegiance. 





to the Pope is necessary to salvation, which without doubt is 
an article of faith; and that which he proved (stabilisce), 
namely, the subordination of the temporal to the spiritual 
power, which is the teaching of all theologians and canonists, 
and which no one can deny who understands the meaning of 
the words. 


' By Berchtold, Die Unvereinbarkeit, &c. p. 20, note *. 

? Every beginner in theology knows that in the Bull of Dec. 8, 1854, 
the words containing the definition are: ‘ Declaramus, pronunciamus et 
definimus, doctrinam, quae tenet, B.V. Mariam .... ab omni originalis 
culpae labe praeservatam immunem, esse a Deo revelatam, atque idcirco 
ab omnibus fidelibus firmiter constanterque credendam ;’ and that the rest 
is only further explanation. No less clearly marked is the definition of 
Boniface VIII. : ‘ Porro subesse Romano Pontifici omnem humanam cre- 
aturam (according to 1 Pet. ii. 138. Cf. Mark xvi. 15. Greg. M. hom. 29 
in Evang. The fifth Lateran Council puts: Omnes Christi fideles) de- 
claramus, dicimus, definimus et pronunciamus omnino esse de necessitate 
salutis.’ 

3 Mamachi, l.c. p. 182, nota. 

* De planctu Eccles. ii. 60: ‘ Pono extravagantem Bonifacii VIII., quae 
istam determinat quaestionem.’ 

*sHuber, ‘p. 739: 

6 In two cases, says the article, a subject is not bound to obey his su- 
perior: 1, when there is an opposing command of a higher authority; and 
2. when the superior commands things concerning which the subject owes 
him no obedience. St. Thomas, 2, 2, q. 104, a. 5, is cited: ‘ Subditi in iis 
tantummodo superioribus suis obedire tenentur, in quibus ipsi superiores 
sublimioris potestatis praecepto non adversantur, et in quibus ipsi suis 
superioribus subjiciuntur. .:.. In his quae pertinent ad interiorem motum 
voluntatis homo non tenetur homini obedire, sed solum Deo.’ And refer- 
ence is made to the words of St. Augustine, Serm. 6 de Verb. Dom.: ‘If 
the proconsul commands one thing and the emperor another, who doubts 
that we must obey the emperor and disregard the proconsul? And thus, 
too, if the emperor commands one thing and God another, we must obey 
God and disregard the emperor.’ Also to Seneca, de Benefic. iii. 


§ 4. 

The Bull‘ Unam sanctam’ was expressly renewed by the fifth 
Lateran Council. This confirmation is adduced by Schulte in 
proof of the dogmatic character of the Bull (denied indeed by 
no one). But if he and the other opponents of Papal Infallibility 
make use of this Bull against the infallibility of the Pope, they ~ 
must make use of it also against the infallibility of General 
Councils, since one of these has approved the Bull. The fact is 


The Declarations of the Popes. Cy 





they no longer recognise any infallibility at all of the Church, 
though for long they maintained that as faithful Catholics they 
honoured her. What, however, the fifth Lateran Council does 
prove is that only the concluding sentence, on the necessity of 
giving due obedience to the Pope, was considered as a dogmatic 
decision ; to this sentence alone does the Council expressly refer. 
Yet even this sentence is unendurable to modern opponents of 
the Holy See, just as it was to M. A. de Dominis, who declared 
it contained an intolerable error.1 His declaration was de- 
nounced as heretical by the Cologne theologians ;? and indeed 
even Gallicans’? have long recognised that the submission due to 
the Pope is enjoined by the divine law. 

It is true that the error of the Manichaeans that there are 
two principles, one good and one bad, is called heretical by the 
Pope in this Bull. But this is only said by the way—obiter et 
incidenter—and is no dogmatic decision ;* which indeed was un- 
necessary, since the Manichaean error had been condemned long 
before. Similarly from the contents of the Bull we can gather 
confirmation of other propositions, but cannot from this infer 
that they are defined. The Brief ‘ Multiplices inter’ of 10th June 
1851 is no dogmatic infallible decision, because it decides no 
more than that the book of Vigil is to be considered condemn- 
able and forbidden ; no doctrine of the Church is affirmed in the. 
Brief, nor are any single determinate assertions of Vigil declared 
heretical. [See note at end of this volume. ] 


1M. A. de Dominis, de Rep. Christ. 1. iv. c. x. n. 98. 

2 Du Plessis, t. ili. p. li. p. 227. 

3 So the Sorbonne, in 1535, 1542, 1554, 1562, and at other times, de- 
clared: ‘ Nec minus certum est, unum esse jure divino summum in Ecclesia 
Christi militante Pontificem, cui omnes Christiani parere tenentur’ (Du 
Plessis, t. i. Pp. ii. p. 414; t. ii. p. i. pp. 323-327; p. ii. p. 394). 

4 What is said by the Pope obiter et incidenter deserves the highest 
respect, but cannot be considered as the matter of a doctrinal decision. 
So Canus, de loc: Theol. 1.v. ¢. v. f. 170: ‘ Porro quae in Conciliorum vel 
Pontificum decretis vel explicandi gratia inducuntur vel ut objectioni 
respondeatur vel etiam obiter et in transcursu praeter institutum prae- 
cipuum, de quo erat potissimum controversia, ea non pertinent ad fidem, 
h.e., non sunt catholicae fidei judicia.’ Bellarmin. de Cler.i.28. Tanner, 
de Fide, disp. 1, qu. 4, dub.6. Alphons. Lig. Theol. Mor.1.vi. n.112. Merkle, 


38 The Holy See and Ciwtl Allegiance. 





Kritik des Gutachtens des Majoritit der Miinchener Theol. Facultat. 
Dillingen, 1869, p. 18 seq. nr. 7. 


§ 5. 

But it is said: ‘Both Boniface VIII. and Leo X. (in the 
fifth Lateran Council) defined that clerical immunities exist by 
divine law, that the clergy are free from the civil power, and that 
in consequence they are not bound by the laws ofthe State. No 
modern State can be reconciled with such a doctrine’! But in 
both documents the expressions regarding these points are only 
incidental and subordinate propositions ;? nor do they form in 
any way the subject of a dogmatic definition. Otherwise the 
theologians and canonists of later times would not have been 
able to discuss under the eyes of the Roman Curia whether and 
how far the clergy were subject to the laws of the State.? But 
also the words are incorrectly quoted. It is not said simply 
that churches and ecclesiastics are by divine law exempt from 
the power of laymen, but that they are so both by divine and 
human law. The term ‘ divine law’ (jus divinum) is often used 
simply for ecclesiastical law—that is, for what is established by 
those who in virtue of divine law have authority in the Church.* 
Moreover, certain distinctions have to be made. As regards ex- 
emption from lay power in purely spiritual things, this im- 
munity of ecclesiastics is uncontested ; but as regards temporal 
matters it is universally admitted only in a certain sense.? Many 
theologians say that in these matters the Pope alone has im- 
munity by divine law, while for other ecclesiastics it exists only 
by human law ;° and that it is for the Pope to regulate it accord- 
ing to times and circumstances. <A sufficient proof that all 
immunities are not equally founded on divine law is presented 
by the many differences and modifications which the Popes 
themselves have sanctioned at different times with regard to 
personal, real, and local immunities.’ Since the officers of the 
Church are also citizens of the State, it is needful that the privi- 
leges due to them through the eminence of their spiritual 
dignity be brought into harmony with the special circumstances 
of cach nation, and be regulated so as to cause no danger to the 


The Declarations of the Popes. 39 





civil order. These privileges have thus been frequently the 
subject of agreements between the Holy See and governments 
(concordats),® and in this way many limitations have been in- 
troduced.? What Boniface and Leo expressed by the words 
‘ jure divino’ (by divine law), the Council of Trent! expresses by 
the words ‘ Dei ordinatione’ (by divine ordinance) ; but, as is 
clear from the proceedings of the Council, this by no means 
implies that immunities are immediately by divine law.!! Theo- 
logians have ever in this question placed human and civil law 
side by side with divine and ecclesiastical law, and have not 
regarded the latter as the sole source of immunities.!* 


1 Allgemeine Zeitung, 19 June 1870. 

2 Bonif. VIII. (c. iv. Quamquam, iii. 20, de Censibus in 6): ‘ Cum 
Ecclesiae ecclesiasticaeque personae ac res ipsarum non solum jure humano, 
quin imo et divino asaecularium personarum exactionibus sunt immunes,’ 
&c. (prohibition to exact pedagia and the like from the clergy). Leo X., 
Bulla reform. : ‘ Cum a jure tam divino quam humano laicis potestas nulla 
in ecclesiasticas personas attributa sit,’ &c. (following Innocent III. ¢. x. 
de Const. i. 2). Bellarm. de Cleric. i. 28: ‘Non loquitur (Bonif.) per 
modum definientis rem controversam, sed simpliciter et obiter id asserit. 
Ait enim: cum jure divino,’ &c. 

3 Bellarm. l.c. i. xxvii. p. 161, ed. 1721: ‘ Non sunt exempti clerici ab 
obligatione legum civilium, quae non repugnant sacris canonibus vel officio 
elericali. Cf. Reiffenstuel, Jus Can. 1. i. tit. ii. § 13 et 14, n. 290 seq. 
Mamachi, Orig. et Antiqu. t. iv. p. 75 seq. n. 3, p. 92, n. 4. Rigantius, . 
Com. in Reg. Cancell. Apost. t. ii. in Reg. ix. p. 224. Pignatelli, Consult. 
Canon. t. vi. Consult. 86, p. 188 seq.: ‘ An et quatenus obligentur Eccle- 
siastici legibus et statutis laicorum?’ n. 2, p. 189: ‘ Leges, quae non re- 
pugnant statui ecclesiastico et legibus canonicis, obligant Ecclesiasticos 
in conscientia in ordine ad communitatem civilem. Nam si Ecclesiastici 
non servarent has leges, inverterent debitum ordinem politicum, quippe 
hae leges eo ipso, quod sunt justae, sunt etiam necessariae pro conserva- 
tione communitatis cum debito ordine; Ecclesiastici autem ratione exemp- 
tionis non possunt invertere ordinem et gubernationem politicam. Prae- 
terea qui sunt de diversa communitate, tenentur servare leges illius com- 
munitatis, ubi est res, de qua agitur, aut ubi fit contractus, ut proinde ibi 
sortiatur forum (c. Licet, ii. 2, de foro comp.). Quando igitur materia, de 
qua est lex, concernit publicum ordinem politiae civilis aut requirit con- 
sortium aliorum, tenentur Ecclesiastici servare leges, quia agitur de eo, 
quod est sub dispositione civili,’ &c. Cf. M. Gerbert, de Leg. Eccl. Pot. 
1. iii. c. v. n. 3 seq. p. 452 seq. 

4 So by Innocent IV. c. ii. de Privi, 1. v.7, in 6. Cf. Gonzalez in c. iv. 
de Immun. n. 8. Often Old Testament precepts, which were approved 
and renewed, were called divine laws. M. Canus, de Locis Theol. 1. vi. c. viii. 


40 The FHloly See and Civil Allegiance. 





ad 5 f. 207: ‘ Pontifices et jurisperiti....leges aliquot veteres (V. T.) 
probatas rursum ac denuo restitutas ab Ecclesia divinas vocant.’ 

§ Molina, Tract. ii. de Just. et Jure, disp. 31, n. 2, 3, 11, pp. 64, 65, 
Concl. ii.: ‘In causis mere ecclesiasticis clerici divino jure exempti sunt 
a civili et laica potestate.’ Concl. ili.: ‘Non omnis exemptio clericorum est 
de jure divino’—and for this he cites St. Thomas, Cajetan, Driedo, Navar- 
rus, Soto, and Victoria; Concl. v.: ‘ Ecclesiastici quoad bona sua exempti 
sunt a tributis non jure divino, sed humano.’ Cf. Schmalzgrueber, Jus 
Can. lib. ii. p.i. tit. 2, § 6, n.96 seq.; also the memorial of the theologica? 
faculty of Wiirzburg, of 7 July 1869, fr. ili. § 43-52. 

6 Molina, l.c.n.7, Conel. iv.: ‘ Summum Pontificem arbitror jure divino 
esse omnino exemptum ab omni universim terrena potestate; reliquae vero 
personae ecclesiasticae non jure divino, sed humano videntur exemptae a 
saecularibus potestatibus.’ 

7 As to local immunities, see Bened. XIV. Instit. eccles. Inst. 41, 
§ 3-6; de Syn. Dioec. xiii. c. xviii. n. 13. As to real immunities, c¢. iv. 
Non minus, c. vii. Adversus, iii. 49, de Immunit.; Barbosa, de Off. et Pot. 
Ep. Alleg. xiii. n. 2 seq. p. 87; Phillips, Kirchenrecht, ii. § 60, p. 667 seq. 
As to personal immunities, Bened. XIV. de Syn. Dioec. 1. ix. c. ix. n. 11; 
Barbosa, l.c. Alleg. xii, n. 2, 23, pp. 74, 78 seq. 

8 Civilté Cattolica, ser. viii. vol.i. quad. 498, pp. 656, 657. Liberatore, 
La Chiesa e le Stato, c. iii. art. 12, § 2, p. 388 seq. 

® Such limitations are numerous in the Concordats with Naples and 
Sardinia. 

10 Trid. Sess. xxv. c. xx. de Reform. 

1 When the appointment of the hierarchy was being discussed (Sess. 
xxiii. can. 6, de Ord.) the words ‘ divina ordinatione’ were put instead of 
“ex institutione Christi,’ so as to avoid deciding the question whether it 
was proxime a Deo or per ipsius vicarium. . 

2 Gregor. de Valentia, Comment. t. iv. disput. 9, q. 5, punct. 4, 
p. 2103 seq. ed. Ingolst. 1603, &c., has the following propositions: ‘I. Per- 
sonas clericorum non omnino esse exemptas a potestate saeculari quoad. 
vim ejus directivam in legibus civilibus, quae conducunt ad bonum statum 
reipublicae et non repugnant ecclesiasticis canonibus aut ipsi statui cleri- 
corum. II. Quoad regimen personarum suarum directe atque adeo quoad 
vim coactivam, itemque quoad bona et causas politicas controversas cleri- 
cos recte esse omnino exemptos a saeculari potestate jure humano, eccle- 
siastico et civili. III. Clericos tum quoad personas tum quoad contro- 
versias politicas et bona exemptos esse a saeculari potestate non solwnc 
jure humano ecclesiastico et civili, sed etiam jure divino.’ But he admits 
that Francis Victoria, John Medina, Sotus, Ledesma, Palatius, Barthol- 
Salon, Dominicus Bannez, and Covarruvias are against this view, and he 
himself maintains merely the jus mediatum. ‘IV. Quoad causas quidem 

. . mere ecclesiasticas, cujusmodi sunt quaestiones de fide, &c., clericos 
potiori multo ratione exemptos esse a potestate saeculari non solum jure 
humano sed etiam jure divino.’ Bellarm. de Cler. i. xxviii.: ‘ Exceptio 
clericorum in rebus politicis tum quoad personas tum quoad bona intro- 
ducta est jure humano pariter et divino.’ 


The Declarations of the Popes. AI 





oy Os 

Appeal is also made to the Bull of Paul IV., ‘Cum ex apos- 
tolatus officio,’ of 15th Feb. 1559,! to which our opponents are 
most eager to attach the character of a dogmatic ex-cathedra 
decision,” saying that if this Bull is not an universally binding 
doctrinal decree (on the point of the Papal authority), no single 
Papal decree can claim to be such. But none of the exponents 
of dogmatic theology have as yet discovered this character in 
the Bull,t which has been universally regarded as an emanation 
of the spiritual penal authority, not a decision of the doctrinal 
authority.” We see the tactics of the Church’s opponents have 
been reversed: formerly the Jansenists and lawyers of the 
French parliament denied that the Bull ‘ Unigenitus’ was dog- 
matic, though all Catholic theologians regarded it as such ; now 
the Janus party and jurists who protest against the Vatican 
Council assert that the Bull of Paul LV. is dogmatic, though all 
Catholic theologians deny it to be such. In truth neither the 
wording of this last-named Bull, nor its contents as a whole, 
nor the rules universally received among theologians, allow it 
to be regarded as a dogmatic decision. If there is to be a doc- 
trinal decree binding on all, it is requisite that a doctrine to be 
held or proposition to be rejected be placed before the faithful 
in terms implying obligation, and be prescribed by the full 
authority of the Church’s teaching office. This is not the case 
with this Bull. True enough in the introduction the Papal 
power is spoken of, and in accordance with the view of it held 
universally in the Middle Ages. But here, as in every other 
Bull, the rule already spoken of holds good, that not the intro- 
duction and the reasons alleged, but simply and only the en- 
joining (dispositive) portion, the decision itself, has binding 
force. Introductions quite similar are to be found in laws 
relating purely to matters of discipline, as any one may see who 
consults the Bullarium.® As to the enjoining portion of the 
Bull in question, it only contains penal sanctions against heresy, 
which unquestionably belong to disciplinary laws alone. To 
deduce from the introduction a doctrinal decision on the Papal 


42 The Floly See and Civil Allegiance. 





authority is simply ridiculous. This has been seen by other 
opponents, who have not therefore, like Janus and Huber, 
deduced a dogmatic definition from the Pope’s introductory 
words, but have deduced from the enjoining portion a definition 
as to morals. ‘For how a Catholic shouid behave towards 
heretics and heretical rulers, whether an action be theft or law- 
ful accupation, whether one is bound in conscience to recognise 
a claim for succession or other legal claims,—these and similar 
questions must be reckoned as belonging to Christian morality 
even by the most milk-and-water infallibilist.7 Such a state- 
ment in any one who has really read the Bull leaves us little 
hope that he understands at all what he is speaking about. 
Paul IV. renews the earlier censures and penal laws, which 
his predecessors, acting in concert with the emperors, had issued 
against various heresies; he desires that they be observed 
everywhere, and put in force where they have been unenforced.® 
The point, then, is about the practical execution of previous 
penal laws, which by their nature are disciplinary, and proceed 
not from divine revelation, but from the ecclesiastical and civil 
penal authority. Besides the renewal of old there is an addi- 
tion of new punishments,’ which equally belongs to the sphere 
of discipline. Many sentences are entirely modelled on civil 
laws, e.g. those of Frederick II. (1220).19 The Pope does not 
here speak as teacher (ex cathedra), but as the watchful shepherd 
eager to keep the wolves from the sheep,! and in a time when 
the actual or imminent falling away even of bishops and car- 
dinals'? demanded the greatest watchfulness and the strongest 
measures. The Bull of Paul IV. may be perhaps considered 
too severe, injudicious, and immoderate in its punishments, but 
it certainly cannot be considered an ex-cathedra doctrinal de- 
cision. No Catholic theologian has considered it as such, or 
placed it in a collection of dogmatic decisions ; and to have 
done so would have only deserved ridicule ; for if this Bull is 
to be considered as a doctrinal decision, so must every ecclesi- 
astical penal law. Papal Infallibility, it is most true, excludes 
any error as to moral teaching, so that the Pope can never 
<leclare anything morally bad to be good, and vice versd ; but 


The Declarations of the Popes. 43 





infallibility only relates to moral precepts, to the general prin- 
ciples which the Pope prescribes to all Christians as a rule of 
conduct, not to the application of these principles to individual 
cases,!3 and thus by no means excludes the possibility of the 
Pope making mistakes in his government by too great severity 
or otherwise. His infallibility, which is his only as teacher, 
preserves him indeed from falsifying the doctrines of the 
Church as to faith and morals, but is no security that he will 
always rightly apply these doctrines, and never personally com- 
mit any offence against them. 


1 Lib. Sept. c. ix. de Haeret. v.3. Raynald. a. 1559, n. 14, M. Bull. 
i. 840. Sentis, Lib. Septimus, v. 5, 23, p. 164. 

2 Janus, p. 405 seq. Schulte, ii. 12. The Bull was adduced in the 
Sorborne, 1627-1629, as decisive for those who, like the Dominican Teste- 
fort, would reckon Papal Decretals as Holy Scripture (Du Plessis, t. ii. 
Pp. ii. pp. 248, 289). 

3 Huber, p. 47. 

4 Professor Denzinger has collected all dogmatic decisions in his 
Enchiridion Definitionum, which has gone since 1853 through four edi- 
tions, been recommended by many bishops, and been much praised by the . 
Holy Father. No theological reviewer in all Christendom has complained 
of the omission of the Bull in question; all would much rather have con- 
sidered a demand for its insertion ridiculous. 

5 Dr. Fessler, p. 44. Cf. Anti-Janus, p. 168 seq. Votum on the Vati- 
ean Council, Mainz, 1871, p. 45 seq. 

¢ E.g. Urban VIII. Const. 12, d. 7, Mart. 1624 (Bull. ed. Lux. f. v. 
p. 40): ‘Romanus pontifex, in quo dispositione incommutabili divina pro- 
videntia universalis Ecclesiae constituit principatum, auctoritatem a Christo 
per B. Petrum Apostolorum culmen sibi traditam intelligens, ut noxia 
evellat, et destruat, utiliaque plantet et aedificet,’ &c. The entire Bull 
relates to the Constitutions of the Fratres Reformati strictioris observan- 
tiae Ordinis S. Francisci. Similarly, Const. 64 d.6 Feb. 1626, relating 
to the abolition of a congregation of Franciscans (ib. p. 119, § 1). 

7 Allgemeine Zeitung, 12 April 1871, Supplement. 

5 Omnes et singulas excommunicationis, suspensionis, et interdicti ac 
privationis et quasvis alias sententias, censuras, et poenas.... contra 
haereticos aut schismaticos quomodolibet latas et promulgatas apostolica 
auctoritate approbamus et innovamus ac perpetuo observari et in viridi 
observantia, si forsan in ea non sint, reponi et esse debere, nec non quos- 
cunque .... (haereticos cujuscunque status) censuras et poenas praedictas 
incurrere volumus atque decernimus. 

° E.g. loss ipso facto of all offices and dignities, incapacity to hold 
others, confiscation of goods, &c. 


44 The Holy See and Cwil Allegiance. 








10 Frider. II. Const. a. 1220 
(Walter, Fontes, pp. 84, 85, § 6): 

Sit enim intestabilis, ut nec testa- 
menti liberam habeat factionem, 
nec ad haereditatis successionem 
accedat. Nullus praeterea ei super 
quocumque negotio, sed ipsi alii 
respondere cogatur. Quod si forte 
judex extiterit, ejus sententia nul- 
lam obtineat firmitatem, nec causae 
aliquae ad ejus audientiam perfer-. 
antur. Si fuerit advocatus, ejus pa- 
trocinium nullatenus admittatur. Si 
tabellio, instrumenta confecta per 
ipsum nullius penitus sint momenti. 


Pauli IV. Constit. Cum ex Apos- 
tolatus officio: 

Sint etiam intestabiles nec ad 
haereditatis successionem  acce- 
dant; nullus praeterea cogatur eis 
super aliquo negotio respondere. 
Quodsi forsan judices exstiterint, 
eorum sententiae nullam obtineant 
firmitatem nec aliquae causae ad 
eorum audientiam deducantur; et 
si fuerint advocati, eorum patro- 
cinium nullatenus recipiatur; si 
vero tabelliones exstiterint, instru- 
menta confecta per eos nullius 
sint penitus roboris vel momenti. 


Let any one show even a single instance of a similar conformity to civil 
laws in a really dogmatic Bull. 

n Paul IV. nowhere in the Bull calls himself ‘ doctor ;’ he acts* more 
vigilis pastoris,’ ‘ pro munere pastorali valpes vineam Domini demoliri 
satagentes capere et lupos ab ovibus arcere’ (§ 1). 

2 As Bishop Victor of Bergamo (Raynald. a. 1558, n. 20), Bishop Jacob 
of Nevers (ib. a. 1559, n. 13), Archbishop Bartholomew (ib. a. 1560, n. 22), 
the Bishop of Nantes (ib. n. 35), Cardinal Chatillon Bishop of Beauvais 
(ib. a. 1561, n. 86), &c. Cf. the Brief of Paul IV. against the bishops 
’ suspected of heresy, ib. a. 1559, n. 19: ‘ Cum sicut nuper.’ 

13 Cf. Suarez, de Fide, disp. 5, § 8, n. 7. Also Schaetzler, Die Papst- 
liche Unfehlbarkeit, Freiburg, 1870, p. 197 ; and Merkle in the Augsburg 
Pastoralblatt, 11 Feb. 1871, pp. 47-50. 


§ 7. 

But it is said: ‘This Bull is directed to the whole Church, 
is subscribed by the Cardinals, and thus has been published in 
the most solemn form, and is certainly ex cathedra.’”! These 
characteristics, however, do not suffice for a dogmatic doctrinal 
decision. Universally binding laws as to discipline have also 
been subscribed by the Cardinals, and solemnly proclaimed. 
Even the Bull ‘Cum divina’ of Alexander VII. (26th March 1661), 
which imposed on all ecclesiastical property in Italy certain 
tithes to help the Venetians in their struggle against the Turks, 
was subscribed by the Cardinals.2. And other Papal disciplin- 
ary laws have been issued ‘out of the fulness of power’ (de 
plenitudine potestatis) ;? the word ‘define’ is used in other 
places also of judicial judgments ;* and laws designated as to be 


The Declarations of the Popes. 45 





in force for ever (constitutio in perpetuum valitura) have been 
soon afterwards repealed, because they were found to be of no 
service to the Church.® The sort of proofs our opponents bring 
forward in this matter show an entire ignorance of Papal Bulls.® 
Compare, for example, another Bull of the same Pope directed . 
against the ambitious endeavours of those who coveted the Papal 
dignity ;’ this Bull has equally the agreement of the Cardinals, 
is published out of the plenitude of the Papal power, is declared 
to be for ever in force, threatens equally all spiritual and tem- 
poral dignitaries without exception, &c. And yet it is un- 
doubtedly not in the least a dogmatic Bull. If it were, there 
would be scarcely any recent ecclesiastical laws (as opposed to 
dogmas) for canonists to discuss; while dogmatic theologians 
would have been all in strange ignorance of their province. 


1 Schulte, i. p. 34, n. 1. 

? Bull. ed. Lux. t. vi. p. 142 seq. 

3 Cf. Bened. XI. 1304, c. iii. de Elect.i. 3. Joh. XXII. a. 1319, c. xi. de 
Praebend. iii. 2, in Xvagg. com. Clem. X. 1671, Const. 52. Romanus 
Pontifex, Bullar. ed. Lux. vi. 376 seq. Const. Creditae Nobis, 1670, ib. 
p. 321 (Indult for the residence of the Papal Court). Innocent XII. Const. 
Speculatores, 1694, § 3 (Conc. Trid. ed. Richter, p. 531). Pius IX. 
26 Aug. 1852 (Acta Pii IX. vol. i. p. 376, Indult for the Congr. Laure- 
tana), &c. 

4 Innoc. III. 1. vi. ep. 90, 104, 109, 189, 202, 203, pp. 96, 111, 114, 208, 
227 seq.; 1. viii. ep. 60, 61, 106, 155, p. 626 seq. 675, 734, and elsewhere. 
Thus 1. ix. ep. 88, p. 905: ‘ Quod est a nobis sententialiter definitum ;’ 1. vii. 
ep. 29, p. 311: ‘Lis ante judicem debet contestari et causa per judicem 
definiri,’ 

5 So also the Emperor Frederic II. says of his law against the heretics 
(1220): ‘Hoe edicto in perpetuum valituro’ (Walter, Fontes, p. 84, § 6). 
Cf. Pius V. Const. Cum nil magis, c. un v. 14, de Monet. Tonsor. Const. 2, 
3, de Ambitu, v. 10, in libro sept. Const. Romanus Pontifex, 1568 (Conc. 
Trid. ed. Richter, p. 502): ‘De apostolicae potestatis plenitudine hac per- 
petua valitura constitutione.’ In like manner, Alex. VII. Const. 25, In 
‘sublimi; Clem. X. Const. 21, In gravissimis (Bull. vi. 42 seq. 328 seq. ed. 
Luxemb.), in which for the States of the Church the revocation of exemp- 
tions from certain taxes is declared, and in numberless other Bulls. 

5 See my review of Schulte in the Archiv fiir Kirchenrecht, 1871. 
vol. xxv. p. exxix. § 17; also Fessler, l.c. p. 82 seq. 

7 Cap. i. Cum secundum Apostolum. 1. vy. 10, de Ambitu in lib, vii. 
Decret. 

co 


Here should be considered another Bull of the same Pope, 


46 The Holy See and Civil Allegiance. 





‘Quum quorumdam’ of 7th Aug. 1555,} which has been even 
called a transformation of previous doctrine. ‘ Up to the year 
1555,’ says the Allgemeine Zeitung,? ‘it was the Papal doctrine? 
that only those who persisted in holding a doctrine contrary to 
that of the Church, and those who having recanted again fell 
into the same or another heresy, were to be* given over to be 
burnt at the stake. In that year, however, Paul IV. laid down 
the new principle that certain doctrines, even though held for 
the first time and at once recanted, were forthwith to be punished 
with death ; to wit, whoever rejected any of the decisions of 
the Church as to the Trinity, or denied the perpetual virginity 
of Mary, was to be placed on a par with relapsed heretics, and 
to be put to death even though he recanted.’ And Schulte 
adds: ‘The spiritual judge brought the heretic to the funeral 
pile, but the temporal judge gave the order to kindle it. In 
this way the clergy could say: “We do not pronounce the 
penalty of death.” There is not to be found a grosser example 
of hypocrisy.’ And Huber considers that in this the temporal 
power was degraded, since it did hangman’s duty for the 
spiritual power, and thus recognised its own subordination.°® 

To all this we answer: First, this Bull is certainly no 
ex-cathedra decision of the Pope in his office of teacher. There 
are no rational grounds for such an assertion, which much rather 
violates all the rules that have on such matters to be observed. 
The question was not about controversies, but about articles of 
faith settled long before by the Church.? This penal law may 
be blamed for its severity; only let it be remembered that it 
was published less than two years after Calvin had caused 
Servetus to be put to death for denying the doctrine of the 
Trinity ; that it was held as a wholesome remedy to check the 
fearful progress of error, and to terrify those who led the people 
astray ; and that it was altogether in harmony with the spirit of 
the sixteenth century. Secondly, the Church truly enough 
forbids ecclesiastics to codperate immediately and actively in 
the killing of a fellow-man, even though it be done with perfect 
justice. She considers it unfit and unseemly that he who ex- 
ercises the sacred functions of the priesthood should take part 


The Declarations of the Popes. 47 





in putting, however justly, another man to death ; and the 
right feeling of the Christian people will ever make them take 
the same view. But for all this the Church has never considered 
that to pass sentence of death was altogether unlawful. Even 
for an ecclesiastic to pass a just sentence of death was in itself 
no guilt, no sin ; only he was forbidden to do so by the Church, 
because this, like many other actions, was unseemly for him 
because of his sacred office. What ground is there here for the 
charge of hypocrisy ‘Thirdly, the criminal legislation of 
Catholic countries, as Italy, Spain, and France, had at that 
time not undergone the essential alteration that occurred later. 
The State, from the point of view then prevailing, felt it no 
degradation to execute the punishment fixed by law for heretics. 

1 Bullar. Rom. ed. Coquelin. t. iv. p. i. p. 322. Sentis, l.c. c. xxii. 

2? 19 June 1870. 

3 This ‘doctrine’ (Lehre) is, however, to be found in no definition. 
Huber (p. 48) says more correctly: ‘Till then it had been the rule’ 
(Regel). 

4 * Were to be’ (sollten) is also given by Huber, l.c.; but Schulte, vol. i. 
p. 49, § 40, gives ‘ might be’ (kénnten),. 

5 Schulte, vol. i. p. 50. 

6 Huber, p. 24. 

7 Huber indeed (p. 48) says that it is to this day a controversy whether 
the leading scholastics, as St. Thomas and others, did not hold erroneous 
views as to the dogma of the Trinity. But one or two learned men, with 
tritheistic opinions, whose bill of indictment was censured by the Church, 
and has attracted little attention, do not constitute a controversy, or every 
singular opinion of any individual would constitute one, and everything 
would be controverted. The dogmas as to the Trinity here cited are held 
by almost every sect except the Socinians and those-akin to them. Den- 
zinger, Enchir. pp. 301, 302, n. 880, brings against the Socinians only 
the part of the Bull containing these dogmas. 

5 Fessler, pp. 62, 63 (Eng. transl. pp. 97, 98). 


§ 9. 

Especial attention has been called to the Bull ‘In coena 
Domini, which has been styled a ‘ classical example of the ex- 
orbitant claims of dominion and of the intolerant fanaticism of 
the Papacy ;! and Janus says that if any Bull bears the stamp 
of an ex-cathedra decision it must surely be this one, which was 
confirmed again and again by so many Popes.” But here again 


48 The fToly See and Civil Allegiance. 





there is quite absent any doctrinal decision ex cathedra, for 
which alone the Vatican Council claims infallibility. A dog- 
matic doctrinal decision is unalterable and irrevocable ; and 
precisely the history of the Bull ‘In coena Domini”® shows how 
absurd is the assertion that it contains such a decision. What 
it does contain is a collection of the censures reserved to the 
Pope, and it was enlarged and altered according to times and 
circumstances. It originated in the fourteenth century.* It 
was revised by Martin V.,° Paul IL.,° Julius II.,7 Paul IIL,® 
and their successors. Under Urban V. it contained seven cases, 
under Martin V. ten, under Paul III. (1536) seventeen, under 
Gregory XIII. (1583), twenty-one. Before Pius V. its binding 
force was only known by its yearly proclamation ; this Pope in 
1568 raised it to a permanent Church law, till any fresh deter- 
minations should be announced.? Urban VIII. revised it again 
in 1627, after which time it remained in essentials unchanged.!° 
It imposes ecclesiastical penalties on all formal heretics! and 
schismatics, on apostates, on those who without permission read 
heretical books, on those who appeal from the Pope to a future 
General Council, on the falsifiers of apostolic writings, on 
pirates and plunderers of shipwrecked goods, on waylayers and 
plunderers of pilgrims; on those who imposed in their dominions 
new tolls and taxes in cases where reither the law nor special 
Papal permission allowed, or who increased the former taxes ;!° 
on those who with arms or other means gave support to the 
enemies of the Christian religion, especially the Turks ; on those 
who did violence to bishops and ecclesiastical dignitaries, or 
who hindered the exportation of food and other commodities to 
the seat of the Roman Court, or who appealed from the spiritual 
courts to the civil power, issued decrees or statutes to the 
injury of the Church, seized on ecclesiastical property, &ce.— 
almost all things which had already been condemned separately 
in previous Decretals and Bulls, and among which no one can 
find a dogma. The whole collection rested on the ground of 
the medizval law, and so it is not to be wondered at if the Bull 
caused no little offence at many courts.’ ‘ Whoever will judge 
this Bull, not after a mere cursory perusal, but by the light of 


The Declarations of the Popes. 49 





history, must confess that it is the result not of Papal ambition, 
but of the needs of the Church in those times, and that the 
[reserved] cases, far from being a burden and a molestation, 
were rather priceless benefits to Christendom.’* Formerly this 
Bull was published every year at Rome on Holy Thursday (in 
coena Domini). This ceased to be done under Clement XIV. 
in 1770 ;!° and though the Bull itself was not abrogated, it was 
pretty generally admitted in the present century that many of 
its enactments had lost their applicability.’ Quite recently 
Pius IX., by the Constitution ‘ Apostolicae Sedis moderationi’ of 
12th Oct. 1869, has introduced a thorough change.!® This Con- 
stitution, though the Janus party may call it the great Bull of 
excommunication, and Friedrich may see in it only a new edi- 
tion of the Bull ‘In coena Domini,’ gives proof that the Holy 
See well knows how to pay due regard to changes of times and 
circumstances.!® Hereby the Bull ‘In coena Domini’ has, like 
other disciplinary laws of former times, altogether lost its bind- 
ing force.°? 

It has been attempted from this Constitution of Pius IX. to 
draw the conclusion that in Bavaria, kings, judges, and deputies 
by ‘hundreds have fallen under the greater excommunication. 
But in this attempt there has been a total disregard of the dis- 
tinctions and juridical principles which must be kept in view 
in judging each individual case. For the commission of a sin, 
whereof the absolution is reserved to the Pope, there must be in 
every case a mortal sin that is certain and completed in external 
act, and though the ignorance of the person concerned does not 
remove the reservation, ze. does not empower the ordinary 
confessor to grant absolution, it prevents the censure being in- 
curred.*!_ It would be well if the domain of moral theolog 
were let alone by those who are insufficiently acquainted with it. 


1 Huber, p. 42. 

2 Janus, p. 408. 

3 Hausmann, Geschichte der Pipstliche Reservatfille, Regensberg, 
1868, p. 89 seq. 

‘ The first compilation known of was under Urban V. in 1364. Walter, 
Kirchenrecht, § 191, p. 346, n. 13. Hausmann, p. 95. 

5 Apud 8. Antonin. Sum. Theol. p. iii. tit, 24, c. xxvii. p. 452, ed. Venet. 


VOL. I. E 


50 The Holy See and Cit Allegiance. 





6 C. iii. Et si Dominici, v. 9, de Poenit. et Remiss. in Xvagg. com. 

7 Jul. Il. Const. 25, Consueverunt, 1511 (Bull. M. i. 507). 

8 Paul III. Const. 10, Bull. M. iii. t. i. p. 718. 

® Hausmann, pp. 95-97, 101. 

10 Schulte, i. p. 40, uses the copy published by Paul VY. on 8 April 1610 
(Bullar. ed. Coquel. t. v. p. iii. p. 393). Reiffenstuel, in 1. v. Decret. tit. 39, 
§ 4,n. 124, t. iv. p. 549 seq. ed. Monach. 1710 seq. gives the copy published 
by Clement X. on 26 March 1671, ‘ Pastoralis Romani Pontificis vigilantia’ 
(Bull. ed. Lux. vi. p. 341 seq.). 

1 That in consequence of this enactment and the clauses added 
bishops are not empowered without special license to absolve from heresy, 
is shown by Benedict XVI. de Syn. Dioec. 1. ix. ¢. iv. n. 5-10; and by 
Liguori, Theol. Moral. 1. vii. n. 82 seq., with special reference to the third 
proposition condemned on 24 Sept. 1665 by Alexander VII. 

12 During the whole period of the Middle Ages it was held that a king 
could only impose taxes on his subjects when in certain definite cases and 
for pressing necessities his revenues were insufficient. Cf. Raumur, Ge- 
schichte der Hohenstaufen, vol. v. p. 445. As late as 1586 this was the 
view of the Spanish jurist, Alphonso Alvarez Guerrerus, councillor of his 
Catholic Majesty ; Op. cit. cap. liv. n. 20-22, pp. 711, 712. The Bull has 
here especially in view the levying of tolls and payments for convoy, which 
were used as a means of extortion (Hausmann, p. 131 seq.), and usurped 
by private individuals, especially by the robber-knights. Cf. Innoe. III. 
1. xiv. ep. 39, p. 411. So canon 40 of the synod of Wiirzburg in 1287 
(Himmelstein, Synod. Herbipol. Wiirzburg, 1855, p. 59. Mansi, xxiv. 
865): ‘Cum imponentes et exigentes nova passagia, vel antiqua seu con- 
cessa augmentantes, singulis annis summus Pontifex in coena Domini 
anathematis vinculo denunciet subjacere, statuimus,’ &c. 

ts As we see in the libellous work by Le Bret, styled Pragmatische 
Geschichte der so berufenen Bulle in Coena Domini, Frankfurt, 1769 
seq., in four parts. On the remonstrances of courts, see Hausmann, 
p. 375 seq. 

4 Hausmann, p. 102, § 13. He treats the twenty cases in detail, 
p. 107 seq. Cf. also Historisch-polit. Blatter, 1848, vii. p. 75 seq. 

15 Similarly in the Greek Church on the Sunday of Orthodoxy (1st 
Sunday in Lent), a list of heresies and ecelesiastical offences punished 
with excommunication was given out. Cf. Schroéckl, Kirchen-Geschichte 
seit der Reformation, vol. ix. pp. 18, 19. 

16 Hereon see Theiner, Histoire du Pontificat de Clément XIV. vol. i. 
pp. 480, 481, 525, 552. 

1 Because the principles on which they rested had become modified 
by renunciations and other valid acts on the part of the Church; or 
because, through causes applying to the whole community, the mctive 
justifying them had ceased; or because it can reasonably be presumed 
that the lawgiver under certain circumstances permits a law to be no 
longer in force, as being injurious or too difficult to be carried out. See 
Denzinger’s article, ‘ Ueber die dermalige Geltung der Bulla Coenae,’ in 
the Wiirzburg Katholische Worhenschrift, 5 May 1845, n. 18, p. 275. 

18 No new censures are to be found in it, while many former ones are 


The Declarations of the Popes. SE: 





entirely removed, viz. the censures against appropriating stranded goods, 
against piracy, against supplying the Saracens with weapons, and also the 
censure against nova pedagia et gabellas, which was so objectionable to 
statesmen. 

19 Cf. the words of the Constitution: ‘Cum animo Nostro jam pridem 
revolveremus ....quasdam (ecclesiasticas censuras) etiam, temporibus 
moribusque mutatis, a fine atque causis, ob quas impositae fuerant, vel a 
pristina utilitate atque opportunitate excidisse.’ 

» Fessler, p. 55; English transl. pp. 87, 88. 

21 §. Lig. Theol. Mor. n. 580-582. Gury, Theol. Mor. ii. p. 550, ed. 
Ratisbon, 1862. 

§ 10. ° 

Similarly no difficulty is presented by other Bulls brought 
forward by our opponents and containing penal judgments.! « It 
is easy, indeed, to style the explanations given of these Bulls 
‘simple Jesuitical sophistry,’ ‘theological vapour,’ ‘scholastic 
distinctions,’ ‘mere trifling,’ and so on—the heretics also of 
former times were adepts in similar racy phrases and vulgar 
abuse—but what has not been done and what cannot be done 
is to prove that these Bulls really define what our opponents 
would like to make out that they define.’ 

1 Cf. Fessler, p. 42 seq.; English transl. p. 70 seq. 

2 Schulte, ii. pp. 62, 64, 66. 

3 The ‘ protesting Catholic’s’ mode of interpretation applied to civil law 
would force us to renounce all the careful distinctions of the Corpus Juris, 
in short that renowned juridical penetration which in similar cases acts 
exactly in a similar way to that denounced by these protesting Catholics. 


§ 11. 

Lastly, appeal has been made to the Schema concerning the 
Church in fifteen chapters and twenty-one canons laid before 
the Fathers of the Vatican Council, but which did not come on 
for discussion, much less was passed, yet caused so much stir 
among the representatives of the civil power. The entiré pro- 
ject contains nothing that is new to theologians, and any one 
betrays great ignorance of the literature on dogmatic theology 
and canon law who asserts that it contains anything new and 
unheard of.! It establishes the following propositions: i. The 
Church is the mystic body of Christ. ii. The Christian religion 
can only be observed and held fast in the Church ; the Church 


52 The Floly Sce and Crvil Allegiance. 








is the external manifestation, the realisation and the expression 
of the Christian religion in an independent organism.” iii. The 
Church is a true society, with a determinate constitution given 
her by Christ, not left to human changes and revolutions ; she 
is not part of another society nor mingled with another, but is 
perfect in herself, spiritual, and belonging to the supernatural 
order. iv. She is an external visible society and has a visible 
unity, so that the religious bodies separated from her in faith 
and in communion cannot be regarded as members or portions 
of her. v. She is absolutely needful for the attainment of sal- 
vation, and outside her there is no salvation. vi. She is inde- 
structible and infallible in the preservation of the deposit of 
faith, the final and the highest institution (economy) for the 
attainment of salvation, so that no newer or fuller outpouring of 
the Holy Ghost is to be looked for. vii. The Church is a society 
with inequalities, all her members not having equal rights; in 
her is the distinction between clergy and laity; in her is a 
legislative, judicial, and executive authority, as in a complete 
society, which is not a simple collegium, nor subjected to the 
civil power. viii. This true Church of Christ is the Roman 
Catholic. In her St. Peter and his successors have the primacy 
of honour and of jurisdiction, not a simple office of superin- 
tendence and direction. ix. Through the operation of Divine 
Providence the Popes, for securing the independent exercise of 
their office, received a temporal dominion which they rightly de- 
fend. To be rejected is the heretical doctrine® that the union 
of the temporal princedom with the spiritual power is contrary 
to the divine law, as well as the perverse opinion that it is not 
within the province of the Church to decide authoritatively any- 
thing as to the relation which this temporal dominion bears to 
the general welfare of Christendom.‘ 


' This is pointed out by Cardinal Antonelli in his letter to Prince 
Chigi, on the 19th March 1870. 

* This has been recognised by recent thoughtful Protestants. See 
Ullmann, Das Wesen des Christenthums, Hamburg, 1849, pp. 122-124. 
Schulte (ii. p. 9), on the other hand, objects to the confusion or identifica- 
tion of religion with the Church. But in Catholicism religion and the 
Church stand to each other as abstract to concrete. Nor is there anything 


The Declarations of the Popes. 53 





‘ disturbing’ (verwirrend) in the expression ‘ religio romana ;’ the Fathers 
of the Church use the expression ‘ religio’ and ‘ fides romana’ as well as 
‘religio’ and ‘ fides Catholica,’ as Schrader (de Unit. Rom. Com. 1. i. p. 7 
seq.) shows, giving many citations. 

3 Joh. XXII. Const. 1318, contra Fraticellos. Articuli Wicleff. damn. a. 
Conc. Constant. 32, 33, 36, 39, art. Hus. 13. Art. 34, 36, ex propositis a 
Martino V. (Denzinger, Enchir. p. 188 seq.). 

* This is in complete harmony with the declarations of the episcopate 
and of the Catholic world frequently expressed since 1860. See Schrédl’s 
Votum des Katholicismus, Freiburg, 1867. 


§ 12. 

Only the last three chapters and the last three canons re- 
gard the relations between Church and State. Let us first look 
at the canons. Here is condemned above all the assertion that 
the independent ecclesiastical authority, which is claimed by the 
Catholic Church as given her by Christ, cannot coexist with a 
supreme civil power, without the rights of both being injured. 
If this assertion were true, it would be false that we could give 
to Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, and to God the things 
that are God’s; no concord, such as has in fact often existed, 
could exist between the priesthood and the empire (concordia 
sacerdotii et imperii) ; there would-be an antagonism between 
two orders coming from God, which would reflect on God Him- 
self—a collision between the duties of a Christian and a citizen, 
which would make impossible the well-being of human society 
and would rend the unity of the individual; the disputes be- 
tween the two powers would flow from their own nature, and 
not from the failings and misunderstandings of men. But in 
reality no true peace can exist if the liberty of the bride of 
(‘hrist is trampled on, if the fulfilment of her mission is 
hindered, if earthly interests are set before eternal salvation. 
There is nothing in this canon which can cause offence ; nor is 
there in the one following, which condemns those who deny 
that the origin of the civil power is from God, or that obedience 
is due to it by divine law, or who assert that this power is in 
opposition with natural liberty. Far from opposing the civil 
power, this canon takes up its defence. But just as the Church 
must condemn one extreme—the defectus—so must she con- 


54 The Holy See and Civil Allegiance. 





demn the other extreme—the excessus—while she maintains 
the true mean. Just as she cannot allow the right of the civil 
power to be contested, so she cannot allow that right to be 
exaggerated, as is done by those who deduce a// rights existing 
among men from the State, and who recognise no authority 
that is not granted by the State. So the Church must reiect 
the proposition that in the law of the State or in public opinion 
is to be found the highest rule of conscience for public and 
social actions; for neither public opinion, which is easily mis- 
led, nor the political law, which is often brought about by chance 
majorities, and may be contrary to justice,! can form the highest 
rule, which absolutely requires a divine sanction. So, too, the 
Church must condemn the assertion that her judgments as to 
lawfulness and unlawfulness do not extend to such political and 
social actions; for this is to misjudge her whole nature and 
essence, to deny her divine mission, to suppose a different code 
of morality to prevail for public life than for private life, and to 
reject the validity of the divine law. So, too, the Church must 
condemn the assertion that by virtue of the civil law that be- 
comes lawful? which is condemned by divine or ecclesiastical 
law ; for this is to put in unchristian fashion the law of man 
above and before the law of God. Never can the civil law make 
lawful in conscience what God and the Church forbid, e.g. the 
denial of the Christian faith demanded by heathen laws or the 
dissolution of a marriage valid ecclesiastically. Here the Church 
has to combat principles which are completely heathen. 

The last canon rejects the assertion that the laws of the 
Church have no binding force unless they are confirmed by the 
sanction of the civil power, and that it belongs to the civil power 
to judge and to decide in matters of religion. Here the Church 
merely defends her own independent province against encroach- 
ments from without, and in no way herself encroaches on the 
province of the State. Such assertions can only be made by 
those who refuse to recognise any independent religious province 
at all. 


1 Cf. the speech of Von Mallinkrodt in the Prussian parliament on 


The Declarations of the Popes. 55 





Feb. 10, given by the Germania, 11 Feb. 1872; also Frhr. v. Ketteler, 1st 
das Gesetz das dffentliche Gewissen? Mainz, 1866. 

2 To say: ‘Something is allowed (left unpunishable) by the civil law, 
which is declared forbidden by the law of the Church’—which is to state 
a fact—is not the same as to say: ‘ By virtue of the civil law that becomes 
allowed which is forbidden by divine or ecclesiastical law’ (vi juris civilis 
fieri licitum, &c.)—which is to enunciate a quite false principle. Cf. 
Histor. Polit. Blit. vol. lxvi. pp. 38, 39. 


§ 13. 

In the doctrinal chapters the necessity is specially emphasised 
of concord between the two powers, which both, though in a 
different manner, are derived from God, and are of mutual ad- 
vantage to each other. Then is inculcated the duty of rulers 
towards God and the Church, and the separation of Church and 
State is condemned. The right and the exercise of the civil 
power are set forth according to the doctrine of the Catholic 
Church. The civil power as well as every lawful power comes 
from God ; all are bound to render it obedience, and no revolu- 
tion is allowed ; on the other hand, princes are bound to hearken 
to the admonitions of the Church, since they cannot have God 
for their father if they have not the Church for their mother. 

Finally, certain particular rights of the Church are brought 
forward, and their violation is censured. Among such viola- 
tions are the exclusion of the Church from schools, and the 
subjection of these to the lay power alone ; the restriction of the 
liberty of the Church in the education of the clergy, and the 
subjection of this education to the direction of the State; the 
rejection and suppression of the religious orders ; the hindering 
the Church from acquiring temporal possessions. These are 
matters to which the bishops on all sides have called attention, 
especially since 1848,! and as regards which the Church in no 
way oversteps the limits of her powers. The right of freely 
acquiring property must belong to the Church even if regarded 
simply as a society or corporation ; but.it belongs to her also as 
a gift of Christ and at all times; for she has a right to the 
means necessary for the fulfilment of her end, and she has it 
from Him, from whom she has the right of existence, as an 
original and legitimate power? implied in the duty of support- 


56 The Holy See and Cit Allegiance. 





ing her existence and permanently fulfilling her end. In regard 
to the actual acquisition of temporal goods she has always fol- 
lowed the civil laws of the particular country ; but the right of 
acquisition in general is a right natural to her, and not originally 
coming from the grant of the particular State.* 

1 Cf. the memorial of Wiirzburg, Nov. 1848; that of the Bavarian 
episcopate, 20 Oct. 1850; that of the Archbishop of Freiburg, 1853 and 
1863; and others. 

? Syllab. prop. 26: ‘ Nativum ac legitimum jus acquirendi ac possi- 
dendi.’ 

3 Schulte, Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts, 2d ed. § 180, n. 1-3, p. 488 seq. 


§ 14. 

Thus idly our opponents seek out documents which alto- 
gether fail to prove what they wish to make them prove. They 
confine their attention to the Middle Ages, and to a few misin- 
terpreted documents of quite recent times. They put away the 
ancient and approved rules of interpretation, and mix up general 
doctrines of faith and morals with particular penal judgments, 
principles of justice with police regulations, permanent laws 
with temporary orders, judicial judgments with the reasons 
assigned for them. And while proceeding thus they boast that 
science is on their side alone. Moreover they ignore all those 
documents which afford a confutation of their view, and to 
which we now will give attention. 


Part III. 


THE POPES THEMSELVES SHOW THE GROUNDLESSNESS OF THE 
ALARM RAISED BY OUR OPPONENTS. 


§ 1. Papal documents ignored by our opponents. § 2. Alleged instruction 
of Pius VII. § 3. The Popes do not interfere in the internal affairs of 
nations. § 4. They wellrecognise the difference between medieval and 
modern times. § 5. Declaration of Pius IX. on 20 July 1871. § 6. 
The Church limited to the purely ecclesiastical domain, and even there 
in many ways not free. § 7. Nominations to bishoprics and abbacies. 
§ 8. Concessions to rulers. § 9. Concordats. § 10. Rome maintains 
their inviolability. § 11. Rome unchanging, yet paying due regard to 
changes of times and circumstances. 


Alarm raised by our Opponents groundless. 57 





§ 1. 

The Popes have energetically disclaimed the views attributed 
to them by their opponents. Thus Pius VI., in his detailed 
condemnation of the French ‘ Civil Constitution of the Clergy’ 
of 10th March 1791, protested that he did not wish to bring all 
times back to the former political condition, as calumniators 
said, in order to make religion hated; and that he did not wish 
to combat new civil laws, to which, as far as they had reference 
to his civil government, King Louis XVI. could give his assent.! 
In the same year, Cardinal Antonelli, as prefect of the Propa- 
ganda, declared to the Irish bishops as follows: ‘ We must care- 
fully distinguish between the true rights of the Apostolic See 
and the claims attributed to her with malicious intent by modern 
innovators. The Roman See has never taught that faith is not 
to be kept with non-Catholics, or that an oath may be violated 
which has been sworn to a king separated from the Catholic 
communion, or that the Popes may attack the civil rights and 
possessions of kings.’? In accordance with this the Irish epis- 
copate, without being reproved, could make on 25th Jan. 1826 
the declaration that the Pope as regards civil matters had no 
power in the British Empire.** In the same year the French 
episcopate could in the same way declare the full and inde- 
pendent authority of the monarch in temporal matters ;* and the 
North-American bishops at the fifth Provincial Council of Balti- 
more in 1843 rejected the imputation that in civil and political 
matters they stood under the dominion of the Pope.® The Popes 
themselves have stated clearly and determinately that they had 
no wish whatever to attack the rights of the civil power. 
Pius VII., in the Allocution of 24th May 1802, in which he 
complains of the organic articles published in France, speaks as 
follows: ‘May God never permit that we, or the pastors placed 
by Christ under our authority, should ever strive after earthly 
advantage, or desire to draw to ourselves what does not belong 
to the Church. We wish ever to have before us the divine in- 
junction to render to Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, and to 
God the things that are God’s. In this we shall ever give an 


58 The Floly See and Cril Allegiance. 





example to all, and have a care that the bishops and the other 
labourers in the vineyard of the Lord by word and deed strive 
simply for the salvation of the souls intrusted to them, and be 
full of zeal for this end, and do not mix themselves up in matters 
that concern them not, which might give opportunity to the 
enemies of religion to calumniate its ministers. We will ad- 
monish them with all zeal, that they strictly follow the precepts 
of the Apostles, who are our teachers, and that not only by their 
preaching, but by their example, they inculcate the obedience due 
to the civil power, by rendering which obedience the Christians 
from the very outset of the Church became known as models of 
submission and fidelity to their superiors.’ 


1 Verumtamen quae de obedientia legitimis potestatibus debita asseru- 
imus, nolumus eo accipi sensu, ut a nobis dicta fuerint animo oppugnandi 
novas civiles leges, quibus rex ipse praestare potuit assensum, utpote ad 
illius profanum regimen pertinentes, ac si per nos eo consilio allata sint, 
ut omnia ad pristinum civilem statum redintegrentur juxta quorundam ca- 
lumniatorum evulgatas interpretationes, ad conflandam religioni invidiam, 
cum revera nos vosque ipsi id unum quaeramus atque urgeamus, ut sacra 
jura Ecclesiae et Apostolicae Sedis illaesa serventur (Const. ‘ Quod ali- 
quantum,’ 10 Mart. 1791 a. Pont. xvii.). 

2 Ami de la Religion, t. xviii. p. 198. Affre, Essai sur la Suprématie 
temporelle du Pape, Paris, 1829, p. 508. Also apud Dollinger, Kirche und 
Kirchen, p. 46; and Pichler, Gesch. der Kirchl. Trennung, ii. p. 736 seq. 

3 Affre, l.c. p. 504. Pichler, ii. p. 737. Dollinger, l.c. p. 48. Portions 
of the preceding declarations before the parliamentary committee of 1825 
are given by Archbishop P. R. Kenrick of St. Louis, in the second appendix 
to his Concio in Concilio Vaticano habenda, at non habita, Neapoli, 1870 
(a work theologically indeed highly unsatisfactory). 

4 Affre, l.c. p. 505. Dollinger, l.c. pp. 47, 48. 

5 Kenrick, the Primacy of the Apostolic See vindicated, Philadelphia, 
1845, p. 434. Dollinger, 1.c. p. 47. 

6 Bull. Rom. Contin. t. xi. pp. 335-339, n. 131. Roscovany, Monum. 
Cath. t. iii. pp. 529-535, n. 562, § Avertat Deus. ; 


§ 2. 

On the other hand, Janus and his defender appeal to an 
Instruction of Pius VII. in 1805 to the nuncio at Vienna, pub- 
lished by Daunou. But to appeal to written testimony without 
being able to prove its existence, without even taking the least 
trouble to refute the charge of falsification, is a proceeding which 
the whole scientific world recognises as disgraceful. The Cheva- 


Alarm rarsed by our Opponents groundless. 59 





lier Artaud de Montor, the biographer and for many years the 
ambassador of Pius VII. and Leo XII., declared that this alleged 
Instruction was wholly untrustworthy, and composed or falsified 
by private persons.! It belongs, without doubt, to the spurious. 
documents, of which Pius VII. in his Brief of 31st August 1806 
to Cardinal Caprara says, that these letters are neither from him 
nor from his ministers. ‘If his Majesty [Napoleon] has the 
originals he can put us to shame. We know not who can have 
written such foolish, false, and culpable things, and we cannot 
be answerable for them.’ No original of the Instruction was 
ever laid before the Pope, and Daunou could give neither the 
place where it was kept, nor the composer, nor the exact date. 
It was precisely under Napoleon I. that the falsification of Papal 
and in general of Roman documents, to suit all sorts of purposes, 
was frequently practised.* Other French writers,* filled like 
Daunou? with passionate hatred to the Papal Chair, have adopted 
the Napoleonic falsification, but have never confuted the objec- 
tions early raised against it by Picot and others, nor met the de- 
mand to produce the originals, or at least to state where they 
could be found.® 


1 Histoire de Pie VII. t. i. c. xxxi.; t. ii. c. v. Histoire de Léon XII. 
fe aoe 
2 Ami de la Religion, t. xxi. p. 116. 

- 3 E.g. even Pacca speaks of such falsifications, and in particular of 
an apocryphal Brief of the Pope, according to which Napoleon had asked 
the Papal approbation for the marriage law of his code (Card. Pacca, Me- 
morie Storiche, p. ii. c. iii. p. 190, ed. Parma, 1830); also of another Brief 
inciting the Spaniards to the forcible expulsion of the French (ibid. p. i. 
c. vi. p. 69 nota). 

4 I.g. Origine, Progrés, et Limites de la Puissance ai Papes, 1821, 
p. 229 (Daunou’s work appeared in 1818). For other writers, see Ami de 
la Religion, t. xviii. p. 200; c. x. pp. 251, 298, 426. 

5 On Daunou, see Ami de la Religion, t. xxviii. pp. 1, 193, 196, 369; 
t. xix. p. 357; t. cv. p. 602; t. cx. p. 33. | 

6 Tbid. t. xviii. l.c.; t. xix. Le.; t. xxi. p. 116. Picot, Mémoires pour 
servir 4 l’Hist. Eeclés. du xviii Siécle, t. iii. p. 441 seq. 


§ 3. 
Long ago has Ferdinand Walter observed that ‘the place of 
legitimacy and the principle of justice has been occupied (in 


60 The [Toly See and Civil Allegiance. 





modern States) by actual power, and whoever knows how to 
seize this power, and maintain it for a certain time,.is sure of 
the speedy recognition of the other powers. In consequence 
even the Roman See has had to give up interference in the 
internal affairs of nations for the preservation of law and justice, 
and has had to adopt the principle of recognising every actually 
existing power, as far as is needful for the good order of the 
ecclesiastical affairs of the country.1 The adoption of this 
principle, it should be noticed, is not very recent; for Gre- 
gory XVL., in the Bull published 7th August 1831? on occasion 
of the disputed succession in Portugal, approves and renews a 
number of publications by his predecessors. Among these are: 
(a) The decretals published by Clement V., where it is declared 
that the title by which a prince is addressed does not prejudice 
the rights of any other claimant, nor constitute a recognition of 
the former ;? (>) the letter of John XXII. to Robert Bruce the 
ruler of Scotland, who was at war with England, and whom, 
owing to the doubtfulness of his right and the claims of 
Edward II. of England, the Pope did not at first address by 
the royal title ;* (c) the publication of Pius II. in 1459 as to 
the dispute between Frederic III. and Matthias for the throne 
of Hungary, declaring that he simply called him king who 
was in possession of the kingdom, without injury to any other 
right ;? (¢d) the general declaration of Sixtus IV. in the same 
sense ;° (e) the discourse of Clement XI. in the Consistory of 
14th October 1709 about the war of the Spanish succession, 
when the Pope spoke of Archduke Charles as the Catholic king, 
at which Philip V. was very indignant.’ Gregory XVI. in the 
introduction of the Bull says as follows: ‘The care for the 
Churches, which ever occupies the Roman Pontiffs in virtue of 
the office intrusted to them by God of guardians of the Christian 
flock, impels them to seek out with all diligence whatsoever over 
the whole earth and among all peoples brings greater advantage 
to the right administration of religious affairs and to the salva- 
tion of souls. But the situation of the times, the changes and 
revolutions in the governments and conditions of States, are 
such that the Popes have often been prevented from meeting 


Alarm ratsed by our Opponents groundless. 61 





with fitting speed and liberty the spiritual needs of the nations. 
In particular, their authority is liable to be attacked by worldly 
men, on the plea that they pronounce judgment through party 
spirit on the rights of persons, when all they do is in cases of 
civil strife to enter into agreements with the actual holders of 
power about the ecclesiastical affairs of the country, especially 
about the appointment of bishops. The Popes have at almost 
all times combated this hostile and injurious suspicion, and 
have been eager to show its untruth, so that they should not 
be delayed or hindered in the fit measures for the salvation of 
souls,’ After citing the Papal publications mentioned above, 
Gregory XVI. continues: ‘As it has always been the practice 
and principle of the Apostolic See to take care for the fit ad- 
ministration of religious affairs under the conditions mentioned, 
without thereby implying on the part of the said See any ex- 
amination or decision as to the rights of the rulers, we are 
now especially bound in these times, when political changes and 
revolutions are so frequent, to avoid all appearance of at all 
neglecting the affairs of the Church through human considera- 
tions.’ The Pope proceeds to say that in future the condition 
shall be considered attached to all such acts, that no injury be 
done thereby to the rights of the contending parties ;° and he 
expressly declares that the Apostolic See was here only seeking 
after the things of Christ, that might more easily conduct the 
nations to spiritual and eternal salvation.!° Quite in accordance 
with these principles was the conduct of Gregory in the time of 
the civil war between the Carlists and Isabellists in Spain," and 
the conduct of Pius IX. as regards the numerous changes of 
government that have occurred in his pontificate, as far as they 
did not touch the territory of the Church, which he was bound 
by a special oath to defend. 


1 Walter, Kirchenrecht, bk. viii. § 343, p. 609, 11th edit. 

? Const. 38, Sollicitudo, Bull. Rom. Cont. t. xix. pp. 38-40. Walter, 
Fontes, pp. 479-482. The Pope declares: ‘Quod si quis a Nobis vel suc- 
cessoribus nostris ad spiritualis ecclesiarum fideliumque regiminis negotia 
componenda titulo cujuslibet dignitatis, etiam regalis, ex certa scientia, 
verbo, constitutione vel literis, aut legatis quoque hine inde oratoribus 
nominetur, honoretur, seu quovis alio modo actuve, quo talis in eo dignitas 


62 The Floly See and Civil Allegiance. 





facto agnoscatur, aut si easdem ob causas cum iis, qui alio quocumque 
eubernationis genere reipublicae praesunt, tractari aut sanciri aliquid con- 
tigerit, nullwm ex actibus, ordinationibus, et conventionibus id generis jus 
iisdem attributum, acquisitum, probatumque sit, ac nullum adversus cete- 
rorum jura et privilegia ac patronatus discrimen jacturaeque et immuta- 
tionis argumentum illatum censeri possit ac debeat.’ 

3 Clem. c. iv. Si summus Pontifex, v. 10, de sent. excom. 

4 Cf. the two letters to the king of England. Raynald. Ann. a. 1320, 
n. 40-42. Robert Bruce was unwilling to receive the Papal legates, because 
the first letter of the Pope had not given him the royal title, but had 
written : ‘Verum quia dissensionis negotio inter te ac praefatum regem 
super Scotiae regno pendente decenter non possumus tibi regii tituli nomen 
adscribere; prudentia tua moleste non ferat, si te regem Scotiae in eisdem 
literis omisimus nominare’ (Pauli, Geschichte Engl. vol. iv. p. 259, n. 3). 
When subsequently the Pope, for the sake of peace, wrote to Robert ‘ sub 
regia intitulatione,’ he expressly declared that no gain or loss should result 
therefrom to either of the contending parties. 

5 Pius II. ap. Raynald. a. 1459, n. 13. 

6 Sixtus IV. Const. Hac in perpetuum, Kal. Feb. a. 1475. 

7 Cf. Archiv fiir Kirchenrecht, 1863, vol. x. p. 185 seq. 

8 Quin illa inde pro cognoscendis decernendisve dominantium juribus 
sancita censeretur dispositio. 

® Quam quidem de jurium partium incolumitate conditionem pro ad- 
jecta actibus hujusmodi habendam semper esse edicimus, decernimus, et 
mandamus. 

10 Tn hujusmodi temporum, locorum, personarumque circumstantiis ea 
tantum quaeri, quae Christi sunt, atque unice, veluti susceptorum consili- 
orum finem, ea ob oculos versari, quae ad spiritualem aeternamque popu- 
lorum felicitatem facilius conducant. 

" Archiv fiir Kirchenrecht, 1864, vol. xii. p. 385 seq. 


§ 4. 

Indeed from all the acts of the Holy See in recent times can 
be seen that it well knows the difference between medieval and 
modern States and political relations, and that in modern times 
excommunication no longer has deposition as its consequence. 
When Pius VII., the noble-hearted victim of so many deeds of 
violence, solemnly excommunicated Napoleon I., the author of 
these deeds, he at the same time issued for the subjects of the 
States of the Church, as well as to all Catholic nations, a pro- 
hibition against making the excommunication a reason or pretext 
for doing to those laid under it any injury whatsoever, whether 
to their persons, property, or rights. ‘For,’ continues the 
Pope, ‘ while we inflict on those whom we condemn the kind 


Alarm raised by our Opponents groundless. 63 





of punishment which God has placed in our power, and while 
we chastise the many and heavy wrongs done to God and His 
holy Church, we have as our main end that those who now cause 
us to suffer be converted and suffer with us, if God make them 
penitent so as to know the truth. Just in the same way 
Pius IX. pronounced excommunication, and nothing further, on 
the usurpers of the States of the Church.2 It was known at 
Rome as well as elsewhere that modern States and Govern- 
ments no longer recognise any civil and political consequences 
as attached to excommunication. Nay, more; Pius IX. declared 
in plain and precise words to the deputation of the Academia 
of the Cathulic religion on.21st July 1871,? that of the various 
misrepresentations of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, the most 
malicious was the assertion that in the doctrine was included the 
right of deposing sovereigns and releasing nations from the duty 
of obedience. This right, his Holiness went on to say, had at times 
been exercised by the Popes in extreme cases, but had nothing 
to do with Papal Infallibility. Its source was not the infallibility 
[belonging to the teaching office], but the [judicial] authority of 
the Popes. This latter, according to the public law then in force, 
and by the agreement of the Christian nations, who reverenced 
in the Pope the supreme judge of Christendom, extended to 
passing judgment even civiliter on princes and on individual 
States. Altogether different is the present condition of affairs, 
and only malice can confound things and times so different.® 

1 Const. Quam memoranda illa, 10 Jun. 1809: ‘Dum vero Ecclesiae 
severitatis gladium evaginare cogimur, minime tamen obliviscimur, tenere 
nos, licet immerentes, ejus locum in terris, qui cum etiam exserit, justitiam 
suam, non obliviscitur misereri. Quare subditis imprimis nostris, tum 
universis populis christianis in virtute sanctae obedientiae praecepimus ac 
jubemus, nequis iis, quos respiciunt praesentes literae, vel eorum bonis, 
juribus, praerogativis damnum, injuriam, praejudicium, aut nocumentum 
aliquod earumdem literarum occasione aut praetextu praesumat afferre. 
Nos enim in ipsos eo poenarum genere, quod Deus in potestate nostra con- 
stituit, animadvertentes atque tot tamque graves injurias Deo ejusque 
Ecclesiae sanctae illatas ulciscentes, id potissimum proponimus nobis, ut, 
qui nos modo exercent, convertantur et nobiscum exerceantur (S. Aug. in 
Ps. liv. n. 1), si forte Deus det illis boenitsntart ad cognoscendam veri- 
tatem (2 Tim. ii. 25).’ 


2 Encycl, Cum Catholica rcieai. 26 Mart. 1860 ; Respicientes, 1 Noy. 
1870. 


64 The Floly See and Civil Allegiance. 





3 Given in the Voce della Verita, N. 85, d.d. Rome, 22 July 1871, then 
in the Civilté Cattolica, 19 Aug. quad. 508 (ser. viii. vol. iii.), p. 485. 
Translated into German in the Munich Pastoralblatt, 1871, No. 31; also 
Archiv fiir Kath. Kirchenrecht, vol. xxvi. No. 5, p. lxxx.; and Periodische 
Blatter iiber das Vatican. Concil. vol. iii. No. 8, pp. 327, 328. The same 
view is expressed in the memorial of the opposition bishops given by Schulte 
(i. p. 5) and Friedrich (Doc. ii. p. 389). 

4 The report in the Civiltaé Cattolica of this last sentence is: ‘ Questa 
[Vautorita pontificia] secondo il diritto pubblico allora vigente, e per 1’ ac- 
cordo delle nazioni cristiane, che nel Papa reverivano il supremo giudice 
della cristianita, stendersi a giudicare anche civilmente dei Principi e dei 
singoli Stati.’ This or a similar version has been followed by Dr. Hergen- 
rother, and by the French translator of Fessier’s True and False Infalli- 
bility (English transl. p. 128, note). A different version is given in the 
Discorsi del Sommo Pontifice Pio IX. Roma, 1872, p. 203: ‘ L’ esercizio, 
poi, diquesto diritto, in quei secoli di fede che respettavano nel Papa quel 
che é, vale a dire Il] Giudice Supremo della Christianita, e riconoscevano 
i vantaggi del suo 7ribunale nelle grandi contese dei Popoli et dei Sovrani, 
liberamente si estendeva (aiutato anche, com’ era dovere, dal Diritto Pub- 
blico e dal commune consenso dei Popoli) ai piu gravi interessi degli Stati 
e dei loro Reggitori.’ [Tr.] 

5 The Pope continues (I borrow the translation given by the English 
translator of Fessler, l.c.): ‘As if an infallible judgment delivered upon. 
some revealed truth had any analogy with a prerogative which the Popes, 
solicited by the desire of the people, have had to exercise when the public 
weal demanded it.’ In the Civilté Cattolica, l.c.: ‘ Quasi che I infallibile 
giudizio intorno ad un principio di rivelazione abbia alcuna affinita con un 
diritto che i Papi, chiamati dal voto dei popoli, dovettero esercitare quando- 
il comun bene lo domandava.’ In the version given in the ‘ Discorsi” 
above named this passage is absent. [Tr.] 


§ 5. 

This declaration is clear and simple. It teaches: First, that 
the source of that former right of deposing was not the infallible. 
teaching office, but the judicial authority of the Popes. Deposi- 
tion was a punishment ; to pronounce punishments is the pro- 
vince of the judicial power; and only in virtue of such power 
have the Popes acted in these cases. Secondly, that the ground 
of the just exercise of this judicial power lay in the public law 
of those times, which recognised in the Pope the highest judge 
of princes and peoples, a recognition in some sense the result of 
the desire of self-preservation against the threatening barbarous. 
rule of brute force. Thirdly, that a renewal of the religious and 
political relations of those former times is not to be thought of. 


Alarm raised by our Opponents groundless. 65 





The unity of the Christian family of nations has been destroyed, 
and governments only decide their disputes by arms; it is no 
longer easy, as formerly, for princes to be tyrants; they are 
restrained by democratic elements, by constitutions and repre- 
sentative assemblies ; the reverence attached to monarchy has 
to a great extent disappeared, and the Church is far from desir- 
ing to diminish the little that remains. No one, least of all the 
Pope, thinks of resuscitating the old deposing power.! It is 
only the Revolution which threatens sovereigns, precisely that 
new power which no one by word and deed has more con- 
demned than the Pope has.2 Of the many princes dethroned 
in the last eighty years, not one has been dethroned by the 
Pope, but all by the Revolution, all by principles unceasingly 
combated by the Holy See. 


1 Cf. Civilta Cattolica, ser. viii. vol. iv. quad. 511, pp. 12-16. 
2 Syllabus, prop. 63. 


§ 6. 

Thus in these days the Church is confined to the purely 
ecclesiastical domain, and her whole endeavour must be directed 
to preserve here her necessary freedom, or if she does not possess 
it, to win it back. In most countries, far from possessing this 
freedom, she is loaded with a heavy yoke, and instead of being 
able to exercise indirect influence on earthly affairs by instruct- 
ing and elevating men, she is in many ways fettered and op- 
pressed by the ‘jus potestatis civilis in or circa sacra’ (the ‘ right’ 
of the civil power in religious matters), partly positive, partly 
negative, partly indirect, partly even direct. More and more 
she is driven away from public life, and confined within the 
four walls of places of worship. Even here she is watched with 
Argus eyes, subject to the espionage of the police, and threatened 
with punishment for occasionally venturing on some freedom of 
expression. Robbed to a great extent of her former well-earned 
property, deprived ofa number of influential institutions, exposed 
without protection to the mockery of an unbridled press, suspected 
by the mighty ones of the earth under numberless pretences, and 
accused of cherishing vast schemes of dominion, she seems to be 

VOL. I. F 


66 The [Toly See and Civil Allegiance. 








on the way back to the times before Constantine the Great. 
Yet even in those times she was in one way better off; for while 
externally persecuted she was free internally, her teaching and 
discipline were subjected *to no State approval, and she freely 
chose her officers and ministers without State interference. 


§ 7. 

Very strange is the charge made in several quarters against. 
the Popes, that they who in the struggle about investitures had 
so energetically fought for the freedom of the Church, ‘ them- 
selves gave up again the rights of the Church to the civil rulers, 
to whom they finally conceded the nomination to bishoprics 
and abbacies—a greater concession than the right of investiture.’! 
But we must carefully distinguish different times, circumstances, 
and persons. These concessions were derived froma time when 
the civil power had acquired a de facto supremacy over the 
Church ; and the latter, to avoid worse evils, was compelled as 
far as she could to yield to the menacing demands of the princes. 
The concessions were at first very limited and of various charac- 
ters, being more extensive in the case of churches and prelacies 
that were newly erected and endowed by the princes ; and less 
extensive in the case of those that were older and long in exist- 
ence.” As late as the time of Gregory XIII. (1577) three 
kinds of privileges in these matters conceded to different 
sovereigns wee considered distinct at Rome: (1) the right of 
presentation in virtue of a legitimate right of patronage; (2) 
the right of ncmination in virtue of an apostolic privilege ; and 
(3) simple right of supplication.* At that time also there were 
many churches, without as well as within Germany, possessing 
free right of election ; in many others the civil ruler recom- 
mended to the Pope ecclesiastics who seemed fit, and the Pope 
as far as possible paid regard to this recommendation. But 
the courts of Europe soon sought to set aside all limits, and to 
convert the right of supplication into that of nomination and 
presentation. 

The kings of Portugal had an extensive right of patronage 
in their transmarine dominions, but in Europe, excepting the 


Alarm razsed by our Opponents groundless. 67 





see of Lisbon and two bishoprics, only the right of supplication, 
until in 1740 Benedict XIV. conceded to them the complete 
right of nomination.® The Papal reservation of vacancies in 
curia was formerly only set aside for individual cases by special 
Papal indult.6 Also in Poland the kings had rights of suppli- 
cation and of presentation, except as to vacancies in curia ; as 
late as 1713, on occasion of such a vacancy, Clement XI. filled 
up the archbishopric of Lemberg.’ The concessions made in 
1451 to the Duke of Savoy were likewise understood at Rome 
only in the sense of a right of supplication, and as limited to 
the duchy ; but Benedict XIII. conceded the right of nomination, 
extending it to all the possessions of the duke, even the island 
of Sardinia ; and Benedict XIV. and Pius VII. made further 
concessions.* ‘The Spanish kings had in the fifteenth century 
partly rights of supplication, partly of presentation ; rights 
which were considerably extended by Hadrian VI., Clement 
VIL, and Paul IIL. ; but it was not till 1753 that they ac- 
quired by the Concordat with Benedict XIV. the general right 
of patronage.® The kings of Hungary had an extended right 
of patronage ;'° the emperors had by special Papal Indults a 
right of nomination to the bishoprics of the German-Austrian 
territories.!1 In the kingdom of the Two Sicilies the privileges 
of the kings as to bishoprics were first only granted for the 
lifetime of the monarchs, and were not everywhere equal ;!? but 
after the Concordat of 1818 a lasting Indult was granted for all 
churches.'!* The Duke of Milan and the Republic of Venice 
had received in the sixteenth century Indults granting the 
right of nomination for individual churches ; further conces- 
sions were made to Venice in the eighteenth century. Not 
till 1754 did the senate of Lucca obtain the right of nominating 
the archbishop of their city. In the year 1559 Philip IL. 
received from Paul IV. the right of nomination for the bishop- 
rics of the Netherlands ;!7 while Charles V. had as early as 1515 
received an Indult, often afterwards confirmed, that without his 
consent no abbots or conventual superiors were to be appointed.}§ 
In France, in virtue of the Concordat between Leo X. and 
Francis I., the king had a very extended right of nomination 


68 The Floly See and Crit Allegiance. 





in the old provinces. The attempt (after 1532) to extend this 
to Brittany! was resisted by Paul III.” But the kings, especi- 
ally Louis XIV., managed to obtain special Indults for all the 
newly acquired provinces as wellas for all the bishoprics not yet 
in their nomination ;?! so in 1664 for Metz, Toul, and Verdun ; 
in 1668 for Arras and Tournay ; in 1678 for the archbishopric 
of Alby ;?? in 1695 for the archbishopric of Cambray ;? and lastly, 
on 14th March 1770, from Clement XIV. for the island of 
Corsica.*4 Up till 2d Jan. 1765 the sees vacant by a natural 
death in curia were reserved to the Pope ;*» but then even this 
reservation was given up in favour of the king.”® 

By looking at each of these documents one after the other 
can be seen how much and how long the Popes resisted the 
invasions of the various courts, and yet how at last they were 
always compelled to make fresh concessions, while the influence 
of the civil ruler continually increased. The Popes themselves 
felt how much the liberty of the Church in this way was weak- 
ened. Pius V. confirmed and proclaimed on 19th Jan. 1566 
the resolution passed by the Cardinals in conclave that rights of 
presentation and nomination to bishoprics and consistorial bene- 
fices should in future only be granted with the consent of two- 
thirds of the Cardinals ;?" he even recalled, on account of grave 
misuse thereof, a privilege granted to the Duke of Mantua. 
But the force of circumstances was too strong ; many new con- 
cessions had to be granted; and all the Popes could do was to 
admonish the princes to make a fitting use of these privileges, 
and to guard and regulate the investigation of candidates so as 
to prevent the elevation to prelacies of those who were altogether 
unfit.” 

In the present century the Bavarian Concordat in the original 
ninth article gave the king the right of nomination for the sees 
of Munich, Ratisbon, and Wirzburg, and as to the other sees 
ordered the chapters to propose four fitting ecclesiastical persons 
to the king. But the Bavarian Government, 7th Sept. 1817, 
demanded (according to the draft of 1807) the direct royal 
nomination to all the bishoprics ; and the Holy See felt itself 
obliged to yield so as not to cause the ruin of the reorganisation 


Alarm raised by our Opponents groundless. 69 





of the Church in Bavaria.3® These facts are certainly sufficient 
to show the groundlessness of the reproach made against the 
Apostolic See of having ‘ surrendered the rights of the Church 
to the civil rulers,’ a reproach which sounds strangely in the 
mouths of those who are so zealous for the right and the might 
of the State. It is neither just nor worthy of historical science 
to make a burdensome necessity imposed from without a maiter 
of reproach to the person who suffers under it, and to mix up 
in confusion times quite different from each other. 


1 Huber, p. 3. 

? Cf. Chr. Lupus. Diss. de regia Antistitum Nominatione, Opp. t. iv. 
p. 115 seq. 

5 Rigantius, in Regul. Cancell. apost. Romae, 1744, t.i. p. 208, in Reg. 
HS 1, on. 12: 

4 Eugen. IV. ap. Raynald. a. 1440, n. 2: ‘Supplicant nobis reges 
Franciae, Angliae et Hispaniae ceterique pro praelatorum promotionibus 
nobisque commendant, quos utiles et idoneos credunt. Nos exaudimus, 
quantum cum Domino possumus et honore nostro preces eorum. Ubivero 
aliter videtur nobis pro commodo et bono regimine ecclesiarum, reges et 
principes acquiescunt.’ 

5 Rigantius, l.c. n. 124-127, p. 227. Fargna, Com. de Jure Patronatus, 
t. iii. p. 312, P. iv. c. xiv. xv. 

6 Rigantius, l.c. in Reg. i. § 1, n. 296, p. 81. 

7 Ibid. in Reg. ii. § 1, n. 121, in Reg. i. § 1, n. 297, 298, p. 81. 

5 Ibid. in Reg. ii. § 1, n. 39 seq. 46 seq. p. 211 seq. 214, 215. Carutti, 
Storia di Vittorio Amadeo II. c. xii. p. 179. Bened. XIV. Bull. t. ii. p. 243, 
Const. 23 Dec. 1748. Pius VII. Const. 23 Jul. 1819, Bull. Rom. Const. 
t. xv. p. 228 seq. Cf. also the document of 5 March 1816, apud Theiner, 
Sammlung, p. 19 seq. 

® Pirrus, de Elect. praesulum, § 10, p. 58 (Graev. Thes. ant. t. ii.). 
Mariana, de Reb. Hisp. 1. xxvi. ¢. ii. Archiv fiir Kath. Kirchenrecht, vol. x. 
p. 8 seq. xi. p. 257. 

to Rigantius, in Reg. ii. Cane. § 1, n. 72, p. 185. 

1 Jbid. n. 78, 79, p. 220. Constit. Pii VI. et VII. Bull. Rom. Cont. 
t. vi. p. 414; t. viii. p. 132; t. xiv. p. 389; ¢. xv. pp. 249, 429, 573. | 

'2 Rigantius, l.c. p. 208 seq. n. 12 seq. Vivianus, de Jure Patron. 1. iii. 
c. 1. n. 38 seq. ‘ 

3 Bull. Rom. Cont. t. xv. pp. 7, 15. Miinch, Concordate, i. 721. 

14 Rigantius, l.c. p. 210, n. 23, 25, 27, 28. 

18 Bull. t. iv. ed. Romae, 1762, pp. 20-25, 49, 50. 

16 Thid. pp. 91, 92. Roscovany, Mon. i. pp. 272-274. Properly the 
senate had to propose three ecclesiastics for this metropolitan see. 

7 Raynald. a. 1559, n. 33. Rigantius, l.c. n. 116, p. 226. 

18 Pinson, Traité des Régales, t. ii. p. 1140. Rigantius, l.c. p. 242, 
n. 85. 


70 The Holy See and Cw Allegrance. 





19 Cf. in general Thomassin, P. ii. 1. i. ¢. xlv. xlvi. 
20 Rigantius, in Reg. ix. Proom. t. ii. p. 4, n. 6 seq.; P.i. § 3, n. 274 
seq. p. 111. 


21 Rigantius, in Reg. ii. § 1, p. 220 seq. 224 seq. Reg. ix. p.i. § 3, 
p. 102. 


22 Bull. Rom. ed. Romae, 1767, t. vi. Pp. vi. pp. 45, 248, 282; viii. p. 61. 
23 Rigantius, in Reg. ix. p. i. § 3, n. 208, t. ii. p. 102. 

24 Bull. Rom. Contin. t. iv. pp. 144, 146. 

2% Rigant. in Reg. i. § 1, n. 203, 204. 

26 Bull. Rom. Cont. t. iii. pp. 34, 35. 

27 Const. 4, Pro debito justitiae, Bull. ed. Taur. vii. pp. 427, 428. 

23 Rigantius, t. i. p. 211, n. 33. 

29 Greg. XIV. Const. Onus apostolicae, 1591. Clem. VIII. Const. 
Magna dona, 1599. Urban VIII. Inst. a. 1627 (Bullar. ed. Taur. t. ix. 


419; x. 478; xiii. 581 seq.). Bened. XIV. Const. Gravissimum, 18 Jan. 
1757. 


3° Concordat und Constitutionseid der Katholiken inBayern, Augsburg, 
1847, pp. 70, 87-89. Cf. p. 31. 


§ 8. 

The Popes have more and more surrendered in favour of the 
civil rulers, and also of the bishops, their rights of collation, 
which were made the subject of many exaggerated and unjust 
complaints. Yet in the time of the Council of Constance, and 
at the Council itself, it was recognised that the Popes in their 
nomination to benefices had always paid the greatest regard to 
the claims of learning. The complaint made nowadays that 
men of learning are excluded, especially in Germany, from the 
episcopate, cannot be laid to the charge of the Pope, who has 
the free disposal of not one single German bishopric, but must 
confirm the candidate nominated or elected, unless there be any 
impediment in regard to his faith and morals. As a fact it was 
for some time a maxim at one of the German courts to raise to 
the episcopate no learned theologian or canonist, and elsewhere 
learned men have frequently been struck off the list of candi- 
dates. 

The concessions mentioned above have brought advantage 
in strengthening the monarchical power and facilitating agree- 
ment between Church and State; but they have also brought 
disadvantages. Certainly in recent Concordats the Church has 
given up more than she has gained, if we do not regard the en- 


Alarm razsed by our Opponents groundless. 7% 





? 
dowments of bishoprics and chapters ; and even these are a small 
compensation for the Church property secularised since 1803. 
Most oppressive has she found the great privileges of the civil 
princes as to the nomination of bishops,? and the civil veto in 
their election. 

1 Hefele, Conc. vii. pp. 123, 234, 317. 

2 On the French Concordat of 1516 and 1517 Charles du Plessis d’Ar- 
gentré remarks (t.i. p. ii. p. 357): ‘ Extraordinaria dispensatio (qua ad 
Regem translata est Episcoporum electio) non in perpetuum durare debet, 
si libertatem Ecclesiae et splendorem imminuat.’ As early as 1560, when 
there was the question of summoning the Council of Trent, the Faculty of 


Paris declared in its Postulate: ‘ Nominationes Regis sunt occasioni 
ruinae ecclesiasticae’ (ib. t. ii. p. ii. p. 290). 


§ 9. 

It has also been asserted that, according to the doctrine 
prevailing at Rome, Concordats are not real contracts, but grants 
of the Pope — privileges, whose continuance depends on his 
good pleasure. Yet the Popes conclude such agreements with 
the civil power in the form of a contract,! establish complete 
reciprocity and obligation on successors of both parties,? declare 
that they will not violate nor change the said agreements,* and 
even designate their violation as a formal breach of contract.+ 
It cannot, then, be doubted that the Popes regard them as real 
contracts ; and this is the real point, not what this or that in- 
dividual canonist may teach. But even those canonists who 
call Concordats privileges do not teach that their continuance 
depends on the good pleasure of the Pope, but that they are 
privilegia ex causa onerosa which cannot be set aside by one of 
the parties.” Opposed to them are canonists of high repute, 
even in the Papal Court.6 The view that Concordats are pri- 
vileges has also been held by German canonists without arousing 
complaint, or causing injury to the Concordats with the German 
nation. Thus, e.g. Schmalzgrueber’ says of the Concordats 
with the German nation, that the Pope in the plenitude of his 
power can act contrary to them,® since the tacit condition is 
always to be understood : ‘ provided there does not arise an ex- 
traordinary reason in virtue of which the welfare of the Church 
demands another course ;’ for Concordats, though having some- 


a2 The Holy See and Civil Allegiance. 





what the force of a contract (aliquam vim pacti), are much rather 
privileges granted by the Pope, as may be inferred from the 
fact that spiritual matters cannot fall under a contract properly « 
so called, and that the Pope in these contracts has rather sur- 
rendered or imparted some portion of his own rights than ac- 
quired any fresh right.? It is universally admitted that things 
purely spiritual cannot be the object of a contract,!? and that in 
them the Pope alone is competent; but Concordats as a rule 
refer not to things purely spiritual, but mostly to things mixed ; 
some writers, indeed, make the latter an essential feature.!! The 
former class of Concordats treated of collation to benefices, and 
contained an express limitation. Recent Concordats, from the 
year 1801, are in many points different from earlier ones. Truly 
enough privileges and favours granted by the Church are to be 
found in them, for example, the nomination of bishops, digni- 
taries, and canons granted to the temporal sovereign. Still 
these Concordats, as to their entire substance and also as to their 
form, are by no means simply privileges. 

It is idle to cite the Brief of Pius LX. to Maurice de Bonald, 
19th June 1871, which neither intends to give nor does give a 
decision on the nature of Concordats. Here they are called 
‘ Contracts or Indults’ (pacta seu indulta) ; the latter in so far as. 
the Church by these agreements (per haec conventa) does not 
endeavour to obtain a cession of rights, but makes a grant from 
her own, and thus founds special rights different from those 
according to common law (jus commune). The Brief praised 
the author of a work defending the principles of the Church,!” 
and discussing two questions: whether the government of Na- 
tional Defence had succeeded to the privilege granted by the 
Concordat of 1801 of presenting to vacant sees; and if so, 
whether this privilege, in consequence of the abuse made of 
it during seventy years, could be recalled.’ Here the question 
is primarily about an Indult in the full sense of the word, as 
the Indult of presentation or nomination. 

In general all are agreed that where, in consequence of 
altered circumstances, a Concordat is injurious and the needs of 
the Church require an alteration, the Pope can alter it, and act 


Alarm rarsed by our Opponents groundless. 73 





in opposition to it. Quite a similar claim is made by jurists for 
the civil power.!* Such cases, however, are exceptional, and do 
not justify a goundless and arbitrary revocation. Also Con- 
cordats are in no case mere draft agreements (Punktationen), 
a simple expression of identity of views, receiving their binding 
force only from the civil power, and for so long only as the civil 
power pleases.!° 


' Schulte, Kirchenrecht, i. p. 441 seq. argues from the form. 

* Bavarian Concordat, 1817, art. 17,18. Neapolitan, 1818, art. 30. 
Austriau, 1855, art. 35. Spanish, 11 Jan. 1753 (Miinch, i. p, 461). In the 
French Concordat of 1516 it is expressly said: ‘ Ilam (Concordiam) con- 
tractus et obligationis .... vim et robur obtinere’ (Miinch, i. p. 244). 

3 *Paulus V. Const. Ex pastoralis declarat, nec suae unquam mentis 
fuisse nec praedecessoris sui concordatis derogare. Et jam antea Gre- 
gorius XIII. Const. 6 Junii 1572, edita contestatus est, se, sub quacumque 
forma scripserit concordata noluisse laedere.’ Bouix, de Princip. Jur. Can. 
p. i. sect. iii. c. i. § 3, ex Bineri Apparatu Jurisprud. Canon. pP. vi. ¢. iii. 
a. 8,§ 6. And before this, Jul. III. in Breri ap. Raynald. a. 1554, n. 19: 
‘Nos attendentes, Concordata praefata vim pacti inter partes habere, et 
quae ex pacto constant, absque partium consensu abrogari non consue- 
visse neque debere,’ &c. Cf. Urban VIII. apud Lacroix, de Benefic. Kecl. 
n. 519. 

4 Pius IX. Allocution of 1 Noy. 1850 and 22 Jan. 1855, as to Sardinia. 
(Acta Pii IX. vol. i. p. 254, vol. ii. p. 5); of 17 Dec. 1860, as to Baden. 
Cf. Syllabus, prop. 43. 

5 Pignatelli, t. ix. Cons. 58, p. 109, n. 3: ‘ Privilegium ex causa one- 
rosa....non potest a principe revocari....Censetur hoc casu orta 
mutua obligatio ex consensu utriusque partis, quae altera renuente et in- 
vita tolli non potest.’ N.4: ‘Contractum a principe initum, etiam cum sub- 
ditis, esse irrevocabilem, probat textus in c. i. Ex epistolae (ii, 19) de 
probat. atque communis opinio .... Quod adeo verum est, ut nec etiam 
de plenitudine potestatis posset Imperator vel Papa contravenire contractui.’ 
N. 5: ‘Et idem juris est in successore, qui nec ipse potest resilire a con- 
tractu per praedecessorem inito, etiam de plenitudine potestatis, ut scrip- 
sit Paulus de Castro in d. 1. Digna vox 4 Cod. (i. 14) de leg... ...’? N.7: 
‘Nihil est, quod lumine clariori praefulgeat, quam recta fides in principe. 
Si esset in sola principis voluntate, contractum, quem cum subdito facit, 
infringere, nullus verisimiliter contraheret cum ipso et sic hominum com- 
mercio careret in contrahendo. Esset autem absurdum, ut qui princeps 
est hominum, careret commercio hominum. Inter majores enim poenas 
revocatur, inter homines esse et hominum carere commercio, 1. iii. cod. i. 
7, de apost. Princeps, etiam Imperator ac Papa, contrahendo obligatur, jure 
naturali, a quo surgit aequitas obligationis, 1. i. Dig. (ii. 14) de pactis. 
Quod autem habet subsistentiam a jure naturali, a principe tolli non po- 
test, 1. fin. (6) Cod. (i. 22) si contra jus vel utilitatem publicam. I™derque 
princeps obligatur ex contractu ratione consensus, qui est de jure naturali, 


cui etiam Imperator et Papa subjiciuntur clem. (2) Pastoralis (ii. 11) de re 
judie.’ 

6 Pp. Nilles, in the Archiv fiir Kirchenrecht, vol. x. p. 452,n.1. Cf. 
Reiffenstuel in 1. iii. Decret. tit. 5, § 17-19; especially n. 534 seq. Engel, 
Coll. Jur. Can. 1. iii. tit. 5, n. 54. Schlor, Diss. ad Cone. Germ. in Thes. 
Jur. Eccl. i. p. 319 seq. Ferraris, Prompta Bibl. Can. Rom.1844, v. Bene- 
ficium, t. i. p. 639 seq. Card. Soglia, Inst. Jur. Publ. Eccles. 1844, p. 135: 
‘ Concordata rationem non habent privilegii, sed pacti, estque illud pactum 
non temporarium et personale, sed reale et perpetuum, quod religiose ob- 
servandum est.’ Rigantius, Com. in Regul. Cancell. apost. in Reg. ix. P.i. 
§ 3, n. 165, t. ii. p. 98: ‘ Quin imo posse Papam Concordatis derogare, cum 
ex ipsius parte contineant meram gratiam, tradunt Kochier ad hanc Reg. 
Gloss. 11, n. 22. Branden, ad Concordata Germ. q. 8. Simonet. de Re- 
servat. quaest.i. n. 5; q. 99, n. 23, 26. Rota Decis. 266 part. 3 et 
Dec. 114, n. 2 et seq. p. 6. Recent. n. 166: ‘Verum sine justa, gravi, et 
rationabili causa Concordatis derogare nec consuevit nec debet.’ Santarell. 
Resolut. 18, n. 17. Gonzales, Gloss. 28, n. 26. Pirrhing, in Jus Canon. 
1. iii. tit. 5, n. 366. Mutta, de Caus. Consistor. sect. 18, n. 22. De Sanctis, 
Exam. Consist. cap. xviii. n.18. After citing the words of Julius III. 
Riganti goes on to say: ‘ Hinc per clausulas generales, etsi amplissimas, 
in Pontificiis constitutionibus contentas nunquam censetur derogatum 
Concordatis quoad illas ecclesias, quae sub illis continentur per viam com- 
prehensionis, ut sunt fere omnes ecclesiae Nationis Germanicae, cum qua 
inita fuerunt et quarum respectu Concordata ipsa vim pacti et conventionis 
habent, ad differentiam illarum ecclesiarum, quae sub Concordatis conti- 
nentur per viam extensionis. 

* Jus Canon. 1. iii. t. i. tit. 5, § 6, n. 271 seq. p. 206 seq. ed. Ingolst. 
1726, 4. 

5 But the question here is as to benefices, about which in the Con- 
cordat itself there is the limitation: ‘Nisi ex rationabili et evidenti 
causa .... de digniori et utiliori persona duxerimus providendum.’ 

® P. 207: ‘Ratio est, tum quia spiritualia sub contractum proprie 
dictum et commercium non veniunt, tum quia per haec Concordata Papa 
de jure suo potius aliquid remisit vel communicavit, quam acquisivit.’ 

10 Rota Dec. 266 in causa Leod. 15 Mart. 1610: ‘ Quia spiritualia non 
cadunt in commercium.’ 

1 E.g. Moroni, Dizionario V. Concordato, t. xvi. p. 35: ‘ Concordato 
communemente si chiama una convenzione conchiusa intorno ad oggetti 
disciplinari misti fra la potesta ecclesiastica e civile, rappresentata la 
prima dal sommo Pontefice, la seconda dall’ imperatore, re, principe, 
sovrano, republica 0 corpo qualunque investito dell’ autorita sovrana. .. . 
Come convenzione fra i due poteri, il concordato verte necessariamente 
in oggetti disciplinari misti, ecclesiastico-civili, non potendo entrambi 
convenire che su cose, in cui ciascuno abbia un interesse.’ 

> Deux Questions sur le Concordat de 1801, par M.de Bonald. Ina 
letter to the author, 30 Nov. 1871 (La Fede e la Scienza, 20 Feb. 1872, 
pp. 232-238), Tarquini has worked out his theory clearly. 

‘8 Cf. the work Die ministerielle Antwort auf die Herz’sche Interpel- 


Alarm rated by our Opponents groundless. 75 





lation, Regensburg, 1872 p. 224 seq. Miinchener Pastoralblatt, 1871, 
N. 49. Archiv fiir Kath. Kirchenrecht, xxvii. p. li. seq. 

'* They insist on the inalienability of the State rights of supremacy 
(Hoheitsrechte, prerogatives) exactly as the canonists insist on the ina- 
lienability of the Papal jurisdiction over the whole Church. The often 
cited proposition: Papa non potest ligare sibi manus—on which Branden 
says (super Conc, inter Sed. Ap. et inclyt. Nat. Germ. collect. q. 8, col. 
1620): ‘Et facultatem jure divino Pontifici competentem Papa a se abdi- 
care non potest, quamquam Papatui renunciare valeat’—has only the 
meaning that the Pope in certain eventualities, in case the higher good 
of the Church requires it, can make use of the plenitude of his power. 
The question here is not as to the ordinary course of things, but only as 
to extraordinary circumstances, on which vide supra, P. i. § 2. 

15 As further references on the question of Concordats can be given: 
Phillips, Kirchenrecht, iii. § 158, p. 656 seq. Schulte, Kirchenrecht, i. 
455 seq. Liberatore, La Chiesa e lo Stato, c. iii. art. 10, p. 358 seq. Tar- 
quini, Institutiones Juris Eccles. p. 83 seq. The difficulty of fixing the 
juridical character of Concordats was recognised as early as the 17th cen- 
tury. See Rebuff. Tract. Concord. quae inter SS. D.N.P. Leonem X. ac 
Christ. D.N. Regem Franc. sunt edita, Colon. 1610, p. 902. 


§ 10. 

Groundless is the charge made against the Holy See of plac- 
ing itself above all contracts, claiming the right to arbitrarily 
annul them, and treating the State quite as an inferior. The 
Holy See has much rather ever held fast conscientiously to these 
Concordats. In the negotiations with the Sardinian Govern- 
ment of 1850, Cardinal Antonelli repeatedly urged that the 
fidelity promised on both sides was a most solemn guarantee for 
the engagements entered into, and that neither of the two parties 
could get free from the obligation without the consent of the 
other.! He expressly gave to Concordats the character of those 
contracts (treaties) which are called international.? In a circular 
to the Nuncios, he recognised the obligation of both parties, 
which sprang from the solemn and mutual promise, and which 
was as great as the obligation springing from other treaties of a 
public kind, such as are made between different goveruments.* 

In the Allocution of lst Nov. 1850, Pius [X. complained 
of the statement of the Sardinian ministry, that Concordats re- 
lating to ecclesiastical immunities could be declared null, and 
abolished by the civil power alone, without the consent, or even 
in spite of the opposition, of the Apostolic See.t From this 


76 The Floly See and Civil Allegiance. 








Allocution, as well as from that of 17th Dec. 1860, relating to 
the abolition in Baden of the agreement without the consent of 
the other party, is taken the 43d proposition of the Syllabus. 

It is also not true that Rome has ‘ cancelled’ the Concordat 
for Alsace and Lorraine. She has only declared that it is no 
longer applicable to them, because they have been separated 
from France, and the Concordat was only concluded with the 
French Government for French territory. This declaration 
cannot be assailed either logically or juridically. Nor is there 
any renewal of medizval claims in the demand, that laws as to 
the Church and ecclesiastical affairs be not passed solely and 
simply by the civil legislators without even consulting the 
functionaries of the Church ; for more regard is paid when the 
rights and interests of a mere commercial company are being 
treated of. There is no presumption in the declaration of the 
Holy See, that it ‘can never admit the right of the civil govern- 
ment to pass laws on the affairs of the Church, and thereby 
limit the rights of the Church and the sphere of the ecclesiastical 
authority’s competence. In virtue of her divine appointment 
the Church is completely free and independent of the State; if 
contests arise as to the exercise of her rights, she cannot allow 
the civil rulers to decide thereon without the codperation of the 
ecclesiastic authority.® Which of two powers is seeking to 
tyrannise over the other, the one which proposes a friendly 
arrangement and holds as sacred the treaties agreed on, or the 
one which refuses all arrangement, and desires itself alone to 
regulate all, both spiritual and temporal? The one, which de- 
sires to preserve and protect what yet remains to it, or the one 
which desires to seize on what it never has had, nor can have, a 
right to? The one which defends itself with ancient principles . 
of law, or the one which seeks under various pretexts to create 
a new condition of affairs, so as to destroy entirely the ancient 
law, and which misinterprets historical events long past, so as 
to dress up an accusation of aggression, and then proceeds to 
measures of extremest violence ? 


' Acta Pii IX. vol. ii. p. 141. 
2 Thid. p. 165. 


Alarm vatsed by our Opponents groundless. 77 





6 

3 Ibid. p. 184, The president of the Sardinian ministry, D’Azeglio, 
declared (5 June and 29 July 1850) that Concordats were not to be placed 
on the same line as public treaties between two civil governments ; that 
their inviolability was not absolute, if only through the condition to every 
contract: rebus sic stantibus (which comes at last to Spinoza’s blunt 
statement, Tract. Theol. Polit. c. iii.: ‘ Foedus tamdiu fixum manet, quamdiu 
causa foederis pangendi, nempe metus damni seu lucri spes in medio est ;’ 
Hiibler, l.c. iii. p. 435, n. 97), and that complete changes in the State, as 
was the case with Piedmont, often demanded a deviation from what had 
been agreed. See Acta Pii IX. vol. ii. p. 158 seq. 170 seq. 

4 Acta Pii IX. vol. ii. p. 188. 

5 Cardinal Antonelli, in the answer (26 July 1860) to the Baden me- 
morial of June 1860. 


iT. 

It has been said: ‘ We have the right in judging the Popes 
and their decrees to apply the modern standard, because Rome 
has remained unchanged in its doctrines and endeavours.! In 
this there is a mixture of truth and falsehood. It is true that 
as to doctrines of faith and morals Rome has remained un- 
changed, as well as in her endeavours, corresponding to her 
duty, to maintain and extend everywhere the Catholic religion. 
But as to matters of discipline she has paid due regard to 
changed times and circumstances; she has made no claim to 
rights that rested, as the deposing power, merely on medieval 
law, but rather has expressly recognised their cessation ; she 
has made manifold concessions in Concordats, and has kept to 
them in spite of frequent breaches of faith by the other party ; 
in opposition to the Revolution she has strengthened the monar- 
chical power and has proclaimed its inviolability ; she has ex- 
posed herself to the full hatred of the conspirators of Europe, 
with whom so many governments coquette and make common 
cause ; she has for her part done all she could to repel and to 
vanquish the dangers that threaten society and civilisation, Are 
these her titles to be considered a danger to the State? 


1 Huber, p. 53. 


ESSAY II. 
DOCTRINE OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 


On the 18th of July 1870 the Vatican Council defined as re- 
vealed dogma, ‘That the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex 
cathedra—that is, when in discharge of the office of Pastor and 
Teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic 
authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be 
held by the universal Church—is, by the divine assistance pro- 
mised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility 
with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should 
be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals ; and 
therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of them- 
selves, and not from the consent of the Church, unalterable.’ 

During the Session of the Council the definition met with 
some opponents, a few of whom, since that time in open rebel- 
lion against Church authority, have continued their opposition, 
resisting the doctrine of infallibility as drrational, novel, and 
dangerous. 

The examination of these three charges will serve at once to- 
explain and confirm the dogma. 


Part I]. WHat IS MEANT BY INFALLIBILITY. 


§ 1. Its subject: the Pope discharging his office of universal teacher. 
§ 2. Its object: questions of faith or morals. § 3. Its cause: the 
assistance of the Holy Ghost. § 4. Its connection with the infallibility 
of the united episcopate. § 5. Tokens and limits of an ex-cathedra 
definition. § 6. Infallibility in no wise irrational. 


& I 
The definition has been called irrational, and to justify this 
expression the doctrine has been gravely misrepresented. ‘ God 
alone is infallible,’ said a writer in the Allgemeine Zeitung at 


What ts meant by Infatloclity. 79 








the time of the Council. ‘The Pope by claiming infallibility 
claims divinity.’ Schulte speaks of ‘a Pope who has been in- 
vested with divinity ; of ‘an incarnate, inspired, absolute, divine 
infallibility ; others again of ‘the oracle on the banks of the 
Tiber who can always be appealed to, and who pronounces with 
full inspiration.’ God alone of His own nature is infallible and 
cannot err, but He can by His omnipotence keep whom He will 
from error. Catholics have always believed in the infallibility 
of the Church and of General Councils, without supposing them 
to be deified. Infallibility is not impeccability. The Pope can 
sin like other men, and is equally bound to penance. Infalli- 
bility is not granted to him in his private capacity for his own 
welfare, but is a grace added to his office for the good of the 
Church. This distinction between an individual and his office 
is not new, neither is it unknown in other cases. The priest 
also acts infallibly when, by pronouncing the words ‘ This is 
My Body,’ ‘ This is My Blood,’ he consecrates and changes the 
bread and wine, even although at the time he be in sin. 
If in the case of a priest we must distinguish between his per- 
sonal worthiness or unworthiness and the exercise of his holy 
office, we must in the same way distinguish between the person 
of the Pope and the discharge of his office as Vicar of Christ 
and Pastor and Teacher of all the faithful. When we say the 
Pope (as Pope) is infallible, we speak thus for the sake of 
brevity ; infallibility does not belong to the Pope’s person, but 
to his office as teacher.! The phrase ‘personal infallibility’ is 
one very liable to be misunderstood. It can properly only be 
used when it is applied to St. Peter or any of his successors, 
each individual Pope, in the exercise of the highest functions 
of his office as universal teacher, and when thus used it means 
that his definitions are infallible before they have received the 
sanction of the Church. But at the same time this sanction can 
never be wanting ; the Head of the Church can never be separ- 
ated from the body; the Pope as Head cannot be imagined 
without the members.? There can be no question of a ‘ separate 
infallibility.’ 

In adducing a series of ill deeds on the part of Popes as an 


80 Doctrine of Papal Infaltrbrlity. 





argument against Papal Infallibility its opponents only show 
that they do not or will not comprehend in what infallibility 
really consists. As our Lord Himself with regard to the Scribes 
and Pharisees distinguished between their doctrine and their 
lives—‘ All things therefore whatever they shall say unto you 
observe and do, but according to their works do ye not,’ Matt. 
xxiii. 3—so in all ages a distinction has been made between 
doctrine and works.® Personal holiness and impeccability have 
never been ascribed to the Pope on the plea of the supernatural 
assistance promised him by Christ to prevent him in all ages 
from teaching falsehood instead of truth. 


1 Turrecremata, Sum. de Kecl. 1. ii. c. exii. ad 6: ‘ Assistentia Spiritus 
‘Sancti promissa a Christo non respicit personam Papae, sed officium sive 
Sedem.’ He also (Hard. Cone. ix. 1262 seq.) distinguishes persona Papae 
from Sedes apostolica and Bellarmine persona quidam particularis. 

2 KE. W. Westhoff, Praef. in nov. edit. P. Ballerinii, lib. de Potest Ecles. 
Monast. 1847, p. x.: ‘Scimus utique, salvis Christi promissionibus pro 
Ecclesiae unitate factis, quae vero acternum salvae inconcussaeque per- 
sistent, fieri non posse, ut vel caput a corpore Ecclesiae vel Ecclesia a 
capite suo visibili divulsa aliquando atque sibi opposita sint; corpus si- 
quidem sine capite nonnisi membrorum compago acephala ac sine vita, 
caput vero sine corpora monstrum esset; qua propter sine episcopis ei ad- 
haerentibus Pontifex Romanus non erit, et qui ipsi uniti sunt, cum eo et 
sub eo Ecclesiam repraesentant; est quia capite separati sunt quantum- 
vis numerosi, Christi promissiones non amplius sibi habent, quae non- 
nisi unitis cum capite sunt factae.’ Cf. Can. de loc. v. 5 f. 171. 

3 Joh. Sarvesbur. ep. 185 ad Mag. Gerardum Pucel. p. 195: ‘Nee re- 
tardet vos, si in Ecclesia Romana videtis aliquid reprehensibile, qui me- 
ministis in Evangelio mandatum esse fidelibus, ut non imitentur opera 
sedentium in cathedra Moysi, sed doctrinam eorum operibus impleant.’ 


§ 2. 

The Pope is infallible when, in discharge of his supreme 
office as Pastor and Teacher, he defines a doctrine regarding 
faith or morals.!_ Infallibility does not touch his decisions in 
temporal affairs, such as the exercise of his authority as ruler of 
the States of the Church. It is simply ridiculous to bring for- 
ward, as an Italian (Baron Ferdinand Malvica) has done, in proof 
against infallibility, some laws of the Papal Government regulat- 
ing the exportation of curn. The Pope is not infallible in every 


speech, conversation, or writing; and Gregory XI. acted with 


What ts meant by Infallibrlity. 81 





perfect consistency in retracting in his will whatever he 
might have said contrary to the Catholic faith.? If everything 
the Pope may say or write does not partake of infallibility, 
much less do the utterances of Roman congregations of Cardinals. 
The decrees therefore against Galileo and the Copernican system 
cannot be adduced as arguments against the doctrine of infalli- 
bility,? and it is little short of ludicrous to speak of the Index, 
which is merely a list of forbidden writings, as infallible deci- 
sions. Not all the solemn publications of the Popes (Bulls and 
Briefs) lay claim to infallibility, but only those in which a doc- 
trine of faith or morals is determined as binding on the faithful, 
either prescribed for their acceptance or solemnly marked out 
for their rejection ; and moreover merely the decision itself, not 
other statements made in the same publication. 

Opponents of the dogma often bring forward quite arbitrary 
sentences from some Papal Brief containing no decision, and 
use them as objections. In dogmatic decrees of the Popes as 
well as of Councils it is necessary to distinguish between the 
definition of a dogma and the reasons, explanations, &c. added 
to it. Infallibility can only belong to the actual definition. 

Infallibility is not without limits, as some have asserted, for 
it is concerned only with theories which have reference to, and 
in as far as they have reference to, revealed truth. It does not 
relate to matters resting upon purely human testimony. A 
Pope may, for example, be deceived by misinformation or mis- 
representations. The Church must teach her doctrine, and she 
must alsu teach what her doctrine is not. The end of infalli- 
bility—to guard the Church from error—would not be reached if 
in discharge of her office as teacher she had not the power of 
delivering an infallible judgment, and of declaring, for instance, 
that the contents of such a book as Jansen’s Auyustine* were 
contrary to revealed truth. Again, infallibility cannot refer to 
merely personal’? matters of fact, for these rest upon human 
testimony alone; but it can refer to dogmatic facts, that is, 
it can decide whether a doctrine contained in a book is or 
is not contrary to Scripture and tradition, an extension of 
ecclesiastical infallibility especially objected to by some oppo- 

VOL. I. G 


82 Doctrine of Papal Infallrbrlity. 





nents. The Church never decides upon questions raised by 
merely human curiosity, having no bearing upon revealed doc- 
trine, and referring solely to temporal matters. 


1 Bouix, Tract. de Papa, Paris, 1869, vol. i. p. ii. sect. 1, ¢c. i. p. 235° 
‘ Agitur dumtaxat de infallibilitate in definitionibus fidei libere a Papa, non 
tamquam doctore privato, sed quatenus universali pastore pronunciatis.’ 
Cf. Kettler, Das Unfehlbare Lehramt des Papstes. 

2 Du Plessis d’Argentré, Coll. Judic. i. p. 117. 

5 Bouix, t. li. p. 469 seq. Cf. p. 445 seq. 

4 In 1704 the theological faculty of Douay drew this out in detail in 
their opinion on the notorious ‘ cas de conscience’ (Du Plessis, t. iii. P. ii. 
pp. 425-439). Cf. Bolgoni, Fatti dogmatici ossia della infallibilita della 
Chiesa nel decidere sulla dottrina buona o cattiva de’ libri; Brescia, 1788. 
Janner, De Factis Dogmaticis, Dissert. inauguralis; Wirceb. 1861: V. 
Schizler, Die papstliche Unfehlbarkeit, p.191 seq. Friedrich refuses 
to allow that ecclesiastical infallibility extends to facta dogmatica. We 
shall show later that the condemnation of Honorius by the Sixth Council, 
in so far.as it was an ecumenical judgment, in no manner interferes with 
this extension. 

5 C. A nobis, 28 de Sent. excom. v.39. The judgment of Innocent III. 
is also applicable; according to which any one may be bound in the eye 
of the Church and not in the eye of God, and conversely: Innoe. III. 1. ii. 
ep. 61, ad abbat. 8. Andreae, pp. 599, 600. Abreptio and subreptio are 
here possible. Cf. Leo X. 1517, c. iii. Inhaerendo, v. 9,in Sept. The Pope 
may err in all Acts and Decrees not relating to revealed truth (Bouix, l.c. 
p. 238, prop. 3). Calixtus III. wrote to Frederick III. in reference to 
appointments to benefices : ‘Possumus enim et nos ut homines aliquande 
labi et errare, in his maxime, quae facti sunt’ (Aen. Sylv. ep. 385). This 
is the meaning of the utterance of Paul IV. brought forward by the Gallicans 
in 1557 (Du Plessis, t. iii. p. i. p. 385). 

6 Vide Schitzler, p. 202. 


§ 3. 

 Infallibility is in no sense ‘omnipotence,’ in no sense ‘a 
creative dogmatic power’ enabling the Pope to create new dog- 
mas at will. The definition of the Council excludes the possi- 
bility of this ; it says, ‘For the Holy Spirit was not promised to 
the successors of Peter, that by His revelation they might make 
known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might in- 
violably keep and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit 
of faith delivered through the Apostles.’ But some have feared 
that the Popes may abuse the gift ; this also the decision of the 
Council renders impossible. The very essence of the assistance 
of the Holy Ghost is the preservation of the Popes from the 


What ts meant by Infallbrlity. 83 





abuse of their supreme office of teacher, otherwise the Church 
would be plunged into error. The whole question is, whether 
or no Christ has promised such an assistance. If the Pope, in 
the discharge of his office of supreme teacher, has the assistance 
of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible the case should ever arise of 
a Pope misusing his power to the injury of the Church. This 
assistance is not a direct communication from the Holy Spirit, 
in other words, an inspiration; but by it the Pope is preserved 
from error in declaring and defining the truths of revelation. 
No appeal to the remissness of certain Popes in matters of faith 
is relevant to the present question, which is solely concerned 
with positive decisions. Christ promised to St. Peter and his 
successors that their faith should never fail. He did not pro- 
mise that they should always fulfil in the best manner their 
mission of confirming the faith of their brethren. Pope Hono- 
rius may be reproached with having encouraged error indirectly 
by not proceeding against it with timely vigour, but it cannot 
be said that he ever defined error, which would alone tell against 
the dogma. Dr. Friedrich again misrepresents the dogma when, 
referring to Pope Honorius, he exclaims: ‘A Pope who is ca- 
pable of partaking in the guilt of spreading heresy, who can 
very possibly leave the Church in heresy and help to make her 
so, is, forsooth, to be infallible A Pope is not infallible in 
proceedings such as those of Honorius, who contributed unin- 
tentionally to the increase of heresy by not issuing decisions 
against it.! His letters contain no decision, neither do they con- 
tain any false doctrine. No decision of his ever was or could 
be condemned as false, otherwise the Sixth Council would have 
contradicted itself, for it recognised that the Holy See had in 
all time the privilege of teaching only the truth. He was con- 
demned for having rendered himself morally responsible for the 
spread of heresy by having neglected to publish decisions against 
it ; and in this sense alone was his condemnation confirmed by 
Leo II. As regards the case of signatures extorted from the 
Popes—for instance from Liberius and Paschal IJ.—the want 
of freedom would render it impossible that these could be ex- 
cathedra decisions. The definitions of the doctrine of the in. 


84 Doctrine of Papal Infallibrlity. 





fallibility does not exclude the possible case of the internal 
conviction of the Pope not being necessarily the truth. The 
infallibility of the decision of a Pope speaking ex cathedra pro- 
ceeds not from his own personality ; he is not ex sese (of him- 
self) infallible, but is so only from the assistance of the Holy 
Spint. The decisions are infallible in themselves, and not only 
when they have received the consent of the Church, which was 
the doctrine of the four so-called Gallican articles rejected by 
Innocent XI. in 1682 and by Alexander VIII. in 1690. In 
1682, thirty-five French prelates—of whom nearly all afterwards 
retracted, and excused their conduct on the plea that they had 
acted under fear of the king—assembled by order of Louis XIV., 
and laid down four articles as a foundation for the ‘liberty’ of 
the Gallican Church. In the fourth article this passage occurred : 
‘In matters of faith the Pope has supreme authority, and his 
decisions are binding upon all Churches, and each Church in 
particular, but his judgment is not infallible without the con- 
sent of the Church.’ It shamefully misrepresents the dogma 
to refer the words ex sese to the person of the Pope instead of 
to the decision ex cathedra, thus misinterpreting the opposed 
proposition, ‘and not by the consent of the Church.’ 

1 The condemnation of Honorius is only valid inasmuch as it was con- 
firmed by the Holy See. The French writer, Du Plessis d’Argentré 
(Collect. Judic. t. i. Praef. p. 3), says: ‘ (Leo II.) cum ea exceptione acta 
sextae Synodi confirmat, quod Honorius ex sua parte tantam permiserit 
immaculatam fidem maculari. Itaqgue Latini Honorium Papam nonnisi ut 


fautorem haeresis Monothelitarum condemnare voluerunt.’ Cf. Schwane, 
Dogmengesch. der Patrist. Zeit, p. 524 seq. 


§ 4. 

It is incumbent upon the Pope as well as upon the Council 
before deciding a question to search into the sources of divine 
revelation, and thus to have recourse to human means for in- 
quiring after the truth. But all human means would not suffice 
to give us divine faith in a doctrine defined, whether by Pope 
or Council. The assistance of the Holy Spirit promised by 
Christ can alone give us absolute certainty of the infallibility of 
the doctrinal decisions of the Church. This promise Christ 


What ts meant by Infallibility. 85 
made as much to the Head of the Church as to the head joined 
to the body of bishops. 

The opponents of the dogma assert what is absolutely false, 
in saying that the doctrine of the Pope’s infallibility deprives 
the episcopal body of the gift of infallibility, and places a single 
man in the position occupied by the whole Church. The pro- 
mises vouchsafed to the entire episcopate and to the Church 
retain their full efficacy ; the authority of Christ, which is the 
supreme power of the Church, speaks in the Pope alone and in 
the episcopate united to him. The Pope decides not as an in- 
dividual man, but as Head of the Church reflecting the mind of 
the Church, which can never be separated from its head. The 
episcopate has only received promises of infallibility when joined 
to its head ; apart, or separated, it has received none. The in- 
fallibility promised and granted to the Head of the Church and 
to the Apostles with St. Peter (active infallibility) is no other 
than that secured for the collective body of the faithful (passive 
infallibility) through the teaching office of the Church. 


§ 5. 

How is an ex-cathedra decision to be recognised? what are 
the signs by which it is to be distinguished from other utter- 
ances? Long before the Vatican Council theologians had dis- 
cussed the tokens of an ex-cathedra decision,! ahd collections 
had been made as in Denzinger’s Enchiridion of creeds and de- 
finitions,? the Popes of the Middle Ages laid great stress upon 
the intrinsic differences of their acts. Infallibility is bounded 
by the salvation of men, which is its end, and by God’s revela- 
tion, to which it must conform. Innocent III. clearly states 
that judgments about persons in individual cases must not be 
supposed to be infallible. Benedict XII. carefully distinguishes 
between what he taught by a dogmatic decision? upon the 
beatific vision from what he had propounded on the same sub- 
ject in his private writings. For the Pope speaks ex cathedra 
only when, without constraint or fear, in perfect liberty,°® for 
the protection of the unity of the Church, and for the removal 
of disputes in matters of faith or morals, he pronounces a deci- 





86 Doctrine of Papal [nfatlibility. 





sion or condemnation upon a question regarding faith or morals, 
whether it be that he excommunicates as heretics and excludes 
from the Church’s communion those who teach contrary doctrine, 
or whether he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals as one 
to be held by the whole Church. Pope Agatho (a.p. 678) held 
his dogmatic letter to be binding upon all believers. The 
intention of binding all the faithful in virtue of the office of 
supreme teacher must be expressly stated. A critic of Bishop 
Fessler shows no understanding of the matter when he says that 
the proposition, the Pope must express the intention of binding 
by virtue of his office of supreme teacher, is new, and possibly — 
condemned by Rome, since old theologians —for example, 
Gregory of Valencia® and Melchior Canus—have taught this 
‘new doctrine’ on various occasions ; and it stands to reason that 
the Pope is able and willing to express clearly when he publishes 
a decision in matters of faith as supreme teacher of the Church. 
The Popes have always made quite clear when they pronounced 
such decisions ; for example, Boniface VITI., in the Bull ‘ Unam 
sanctam,’ makes quite clear that due obedience towards the Popes 
is binding upon all (‘declarimus, dicimus, definimus et pro- 
nuntiamus’). 


' Petrus Ballerini, de Vi ac Ratione Primatus, Veronae, 1766, c. xv. 
Vide a detailed criticism, by Merkle, on the opinion delivered by the ma- 
jority of the Munich theological faculty upon the subject of a Papal ex- 
cathedra decision, Dillingen, 1869. 

* Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorem et definitionum, Wirceb. edit. 
iii. 1856; edit. iv. 1865. 

5 Const. Benedictus Deus IV. Kal. Feb. 1336. Raynald. a. 1335, n. 9. 
Denzinger, Enchiridion, n. 456, p. 182, ed. iv. 

4 Ap. Raynald. a. 1335, n. 24: ‘Ista autem quae in hoc libello per 
nostrum ministerium posita sunt, sic accipi volumus (exceptis conclusioni- 
bus per Nos in constitutione, quae incipit Benedictus Deus, determinatis) 
quae non per modum determinationis ecclesiasticae nec ut papaliter dicta 
aestimantur, sed ut scholastice et magistraliter dicta habeantur, sic, quod 
licitum sit cuique in illis dicere, quod ei magis consonum fidei et veritate 
divinae Scripturae ac dictis Sanctorum videbitur esse dicendum.’ 

5 The necessity for liberty is included in the required intentio obli- 
gandi, which is not possible without liberty. Cf.on this point Ballerini, 1.c. 
pp. 288, 289. 

® Gregor. de Valentia, t. iii. disp. 1, q. 1, punct. 7, q. 6, p. 301: ‘ Quo- 
tiescunque Rom. Pontifex in fidei quaestionibus definiendis illa, qua est 
praeditus, auctoritate utitur ab omnibus fidelibus tamquam doctrina fidei 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 87 





recipi diyino praecepto debet ea sententia, quam ille decernit esse senten- 
tiam fidei. Toties autem eum ipsa auctoritate uti credendum est, quoties 
in controversia fidei sic alterutram sententiam determinat, ut ad eum re- 
cipiendam obligare velit universam Ecclesiam.’ Cf. Melch. Canus, de loc. 
Theol. 1. v. c. v. § Ilud item, f. 170. 

§ 6. 

If we have a true comprehension of the doctrine of the in- 
fallibility of the Pope we shall see that it cannot be called 
irrational. It only appears so when it is misrepresented as its 
opponents have allowed themselves to misrepresent it. Reason 
illuminated by faith must further admit that by this means the 
Divine Founder of the Church has kept His revelation pure and 
free from error ; that the continual assistance of the Holy Spirit 
for this end is, though entirely supernatural, not contrary to 
reason ; therefore reason need not deny it, though it can only be 
proved by divine revelation. 


Part II. On tHe Evipences or ScripTuRE AND TRADITION. 


§ 1. Holy Scripture. § 2. St. Vincentius of Lerins. § 3. Testimony of 
the first six centuries. § 4. St. Irenaeus. § 5. The formula of Ho- 
misdas. § 6. Faith and obedience. § 7. The second Council of Lyons 
and the Council of Florence. § 8. The Councils of Constance and 
Basle. § 9. Prohibition of appeal from the Pope. § 10. The falli- 
bilest doctrine when new was only tolerated and often disapproved. 
The doctrine of infallibility is said to be new, and to have 

been unknown in early Christian times. The Council appeals 

against this objection to ‘the divine promise of our Lord and 

Saviour,’ and to the traditions handed down from the earliest 

ages of Christianity. Thus the dogma, being founded upon 

Scripture and tradition, was of a nature to be defined by the 

Church. 

fa Ie 
First with regard to the Scriptural grounds for the dogma : 
our Lord first promised infallibility to St. Peter (Matt. xvi. 18) ; 
then He obtained it for him by prayer from His Father (Luke 

xxii. 32); lastly, He conferred it upon him (John xxi. 15-17). 
a. Matt. xvi. 18: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I 

will build My Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail 


88 Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 





against it.’ Simon Peter had just confessed his faith in the 
divinity of our Lord with the words, ‘ Thou art Christ, the Son 
of the living God.’ Our Lord upon that said to him, ‘ And I 
say to thee, Thou art Peter,’ and the rest. Our Lord built His 
Church upon Peter; Peter is the foundation of the Church. 
The gates of hell shall never prevail against the Church, neither 
therefore against its fuundation,? for with the foundation the 
superstructure also would give way. The Fathers consider 
false teachers amongst the ‘ gates of hell.’ According to Leo the 
Great, the strength of the rock remains as firm as the divinity of 
Christ which Peter confessed.? Some in our day are desirous 
of separating the Popes from the Fathers of the Church ; but it 
is undeniable that Leo the Great and Gregory I. were recognised 
as Fathers of the Church even by the Easterns. Even Photius, 
when speaking of the Western Fathers St. Ambrose, St. Augus- 
tine, and St. Jerome, calls the Popes Damasus, Celestin, and 
Leo ‘ Patres Patrum’ (Fathers of the Fathers). The promise of 
our Lord made after and on account of a solemn profession of 
faith has special reference to the indefectibility of the faith.° 
The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1. Tim. iii. 15). 
St. Ambrose says: ‘ Peter, the foundation of the Church, must 
stand firm against all false teachers.’ 

b. Luke xxii. 31, 32: ‘Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath 
desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But Ihave 
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and thou, being once 
converted, confirm thy brethren.’ Christ, who knew that His 
Father always heard Him (John xi. 42), prayed for infallibility 
for Peter, and commissioned him to confirm his brethren. This 
passage serves also to explain the former one, and we can com- 
pare the corresponding statements in each, namely: the gates 
of hell assail the Church—Satan. tempts the Apostles : Peter 
is the rock of the Church—for his faith shall not fail: upon 
Peter the Church is built—he shall therefore strengthen his 
brethren. 

When the opponents of the dogma assert that this passage 
has only recently been adduced in favour of infallibility, they 
show their ignorance of Scripture and of the interpretation given 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 89 





to it by the Fathers and theologians. St. Leo says: ‘In Peter 
the strength of all is upheld, and the assistance of divine grace 
is in such manner dispensed, that the strength given to Peter is 
through him distributed to the rest of the Apostles.’ Gelasius I., 
Gregory I., and other Popes, refer these passages to the suc- 
cessors of St. Peter. ‘ Dr. Déllinger wrote : ‘ The chair of Peter 
should be the abode of truth. . . . For our Lord’s words, like 
His prayers, were not intended merely for the single persons ad- 
dressed, and for the immediate moment; . . . they apply above 
all to the Church, and to its future needs which He foresaw.’ 

c. St. John xxi. 15-17: ‘Feed My lambs, feed My sheep.’ 
Christ, who calls Himself the Good Shepherd (St. John x. 11), 
appoints St. Peter to be His representative as shepherd of His 
whole flock, of His lambs and of His sheep. The shepherd 
must guard his flock from destruction ; he must protect it from 
the wolf that goeth about in sheep’s clothing—that is from false 
teachers (St. Matt. vii. 15); he must lead it into good pastures, 
and must maintain it in unity of faith. The sheep must hear 
the voice of the shepherd (St. John x. 3, 4). The good shep- 
herd will instruct his flock in the faith. Our Lord said to the 
Jews, ‘You do not believe, because you are not of My sheep’ 
(John x. 26). It was not necessary to use the word ‘ teach’ in- 
stead of ‘feed.’ The wider signification of ‘ feeding’ includes 
that of ‘ teaching.’ In the Church the supreme pastor must be 
the supreme teacher. But unless the word of the shepherd were 
infallible, it would be impossible to accomplish the charge and 
obligation undertaken as Vicar of Christ. Whosoever possesses 
supreme power in the Church must be the supreme and there- 
fore infallible teacher. These three passages from Scripture are 
most closely connected together. That which Christ promised 
to Peter immediately after his confession of faith, that for which 

ie besought His Father at the Last Supper, was that with which 
He invested him when he had confessed his love. ‘ Simon, lovest 
thou Me? Peter is the rock on which was built the spiritual 
edifice of the Church. He is the shepherd of Christ’s whole 
flock, the foundaticn that can never be prevailed against, the 
shepherd whom all his sheep must follow ; for Christ prayed 


go Doctrine of Papal Infallbility. 





for him that his faith might never fail; and he received the 
charge of confirming his brethren. 

Even Gallicans concluded from these passages that the 
divine assistance would prevent any error from obtaining more 
than temporary admission into the Church of Rome or the Holy 
See ; that after some uncertainty truth would always prevail.® 
But our Lord promised His Church that He would be with her 
all days, even to the consummation of the world (St. Matt. xxviii. 
20). He would have abandoned her, if the supreme teacher whom 
all are bound unreservedly to follow? were to define erroneously 
some article of faith. Christ’s prayer for Peter would not have 
been answered. If His Vicar taught error instead of truth he 
would be no good shepherd, no rock ; he would himself be the 
ravening wolf from which he should have guarded the fold. Our 
Lord’s promise must apply to each successor of St. Peter as su- 
preme teacher individually, not merely to his successors in the 
aggregate, as Gallicans pretend. The Popes for many centuries 
have acted on the presumption of their infallibility, have encour- 
aged those who have upheld it, and have allowed it to be taught 
openly. ifthe infallibility of the Pope’s office of universal 
teacher were an error, the Holy See and the Church of Rome 
would long since have fallen into error, for they have committed 
themselves to the doctrine, first tacitly,and now expressly. The 
opponents of the dogma cannot deny that at least in reeent 
times the Popes have acted on the supposition that their deci- 
sions were final, and have been supported in so doing, for ex- 
ample in the definition of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. 
They leave the Gallicans far behind in their objections, and 
cannot refer to them for a justification of their acts.$ 

' Leo M. sermo3, c. iii. p. 13, ed. Ball: ‘ Firmitatem petrae, quae nullis 
impulsionibus quateretur, accessit.’ 

? The Fathers say this expressly. 

3 Leo M. serm. 3al 2, c. ii. p. 12, ed. Ballerine. 

4+ De Sp. S. mystag. c. lxxviii. seq. lxxxi. 

*Bossuet,, Def. Poni. 1.x. cs1.t,..-pp- 19t, 192: ‘Illnd immotum 
quod in fide Petri omnis ab origine agnoyit antiquitas, id duplici modo a 
PP. intellectum: 1. ut Ecclesia catholica in fide Petri immota consistat ; 


2. ut immotum aliquid et invictum in Ecclesiam quoque particularem Ro- 
manam ac Sedem Ap. Quibus verbis (Math. xvi. 18) Christus, qui suam 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 91 





maxime unam volebat Ecclesiam, creavit magistratum amplissima prae 
ceteris potestate ac majestate praeditum, qui omnes moveret ad unitatem, 
maxime in fide.’ Cf. c. xxxv. p. 254 seq. 

® Bossuet, l.c. c. v. p. 197, § Accipiendi ergo. 

7 Gerdil, Opp. t. xiii. Animady. in Com. Febroni Posit. vii. n. 2: ‘ Quid 
igitur? Sic nobis existimandum est, Christum, qui pro sui promissi con- 
stantia continuo adsit, ut error statim repellatur et labefactata fides statim 
reviviscat, non potius lapsuro subyenturum, ne labatur? Quid si promissio- 
Christi fidem in successione Petri nunquam defecturam, prorsus id postu- 
let, ne ullo umquam tempore corruat? Commenta haec sunt optantium, 
non cogitata sapientium.’ Cf. ib. 325 seq. t. xiv. pp. 159-164. 


§ 2. 

But it is said that the doctrine of the infallibility of the 
Pope was quite unknown for a thousand years, that it was not 
believed and not taught.! In support of this assertion, oppo- 
nents of the dogma appeal to the words of St. Vincent of 
Lerins :? ‘ We are to hold that which hath been believed every- 
where, always, and of all men.’ These words are undoubtedly 
true, but the conclusion the opponents draw from them is false. 
The infallibility of the Pope has not been believed everywhere, 
always, and of all men; therefore it cannot form part of the 
teaching of the Church. But if this conclusion were sound, 
every decision on a question of faith by a Council of the Church 
would be unnecessary or impossible. For example, had the 
dogmas defined by the first six Councils been believed every- 
where, always, and of all men, there would have been no Arians, 
Macedonians, Nestorians, Monophysites, or Monothelites, and 
definitions would not have been called for from the Church. 
St. Vincent does not say, only that is to be believed which has 
been held everywhere, always, and of all men. Such a proposi- 
tion would be false. If it were true, either there must never 
have been a dispute or difficulty in a matter of faith, or the 
Church from the mere fact of the dispute would be unable to 
decide the question. Thus the gift of infallibility would have 
been useless. St. Vincent lays down a rule for the guidance of 
individuals, not for the direction of the Church.’ For it is a 
matter of course that that must be believed which the Church 
proposes for belief. Thus the doctrine of the infallibility of the 
Pope could and ought to have been believed before it was de- 


92 Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 





fined, but it was not necessary for every one to believe it, as it 
was after the definition. The Vatican Council made this per- 
fectly clear, for it added to the definition these words: ‘ There- 
fore if any one, which God forbid, should venture to gainsay 
this our decision, let him be anathema.’ St. Vincent gives three 
tokens by which truth may be recognised—that it has been be- 
lieved at all times, in all places, and ofall men. Now it isa 
fact that throughout the Middle Ages the doctrine of the Pope’s 
infallibility was dominant and universal. Not till after the 
schism and the Council of Constance was it in some places 
obscured and overshadowed. But that which has for centuries 
been universally taught by the Church cannot be an error, other- 
wise the infallibility of the Church, whether active or passive, 
would be lost. Can the opponents ofthe dogma prove, on the 
other hand, that the fallibility of the Pope in defining matters of 
faith has been believed everywhere, always, and of all men, or 
even only during one century, everywhere, and by all? Cer- 
tainly not. Only isolated Churches and individuals have tem- 
porarily doubted the infallibility of the Pope. 


1 Dollinger, Erwigungen, p. 1-3. Schulte, iii. p. 1. 

2 Commonit. 1. ¢. ii. (Migne, 1. p. 640): ‘In ipsa autem Catholica 
Ecclesia magnopere curandum est, ut id teneamus, quod ubique, quod 
semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.’ 

3 Cf. the Relatio de Observat. PP. Conc. Vat. Friedrich, doc. ii. 
pp. 311-313. 

* Ruard. Tapper Or. iii. Andreas Duval (apud Zaccaria Antifebron. 
Vindic. diss. v.c. ii. n.2. Antifebronio, p. i. diss. ii. c. x. n. 8), Petr. 
Ballerini de potest. Eccles. Append. § 12. Theophil. Raynaud. Opp. xx. 
389, ed. Cracov. 1669. The testimony of Peter d’Ailly, Gerson, and others 
in Bouix, de Papa, t. i. Pp. ii. c. vi. p. 464 seq. 

5 Canus de Loc. Theol. xii. 6, n. 8, f. 371: ‘Si scholastici theologi ali- 
quam conclusionem firmam et stabilem uno ore omnes statuerint atque 
ut certum theologiae decretum fidelibus amplectendum constanter et per- 
petuo docuerint, illam ut catholicam veritatem fideles sane amplectemur.’ 
L. viii. c. iv. conel. 3, f. 239: ‘Concordem omnium theologorum scholasti- 
corum de fide aut moribus sententiam.’ T. i. disp. i. q. 1, punct. 7, § 45, 
p. 374: ‘Quod universi doctores unanimi consensu tradunt, id sibi uni- 
versa potest ac debet persuadere Ecclesia. Sed quod universa Ecclesia 
potest ac debet credere, id infallibiliter verum est.’ Salmeron apud Andries, 
op. cit. p. 121 seq.: ‘Quod, quia Ecclesia nec per unum quidem diem 
potest errore et semper sequitur sui temporis doctores, in communi, sen- 


. 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 93 





tentia doctorum cujusvis temporis Ecclesiae sensus invenitur non solum 
praesentis, sed et praeteritae, quia unus est spiritus.’ 


§ 3. 

The opponents of the dogma, however, only allow the testi- 
mony of the first six centuries, and assert that during that time 
there was no question of infallibility. Now this is not a Catholic 
but a Protestant view, for it assumes a darkening, an eclipse of 
the light of the Church; nay, even an apostasy of the Church 
herself. Were the promises of Christ made only to the first six 
centuries? Could the Church after the sixth century no longer 
decide disputes about the faith? By what right can any one 
thus arbitrarily limit the operation of the Holy Spirit in His: 
Church? If this were the case, all the decisions of the Church 
since the Sixth General Council must be rejected. Moreover, it 
is untrue that the doctrine of infallibility was unknown during 
the first six centuries. If the word ‘infallibility’ was not em- 
ployed, we find expressions which mean the same thing, and 
whether the words ‘ Papal Infallibility’ were employed or not, 
the thing itself existed always. The opponents (we might call 
them the Fallibilists), in requiring that the ancient Church 
should have used that identical expression, act as the Arians 
acted, who fancied themselves free to reject the decision of the 
Council of Nicea, because in its definition of the relation between: 
the Father and the Son, a word was used (homousios, of the same 
nature) which was not to be found used of the Son of God either 
in Scripture or in the writings ofthe Fathers.1_ The divinity of 
the Son had always been an article of faith ; but the disputes 
arising from the closer definition of His position with regard to 
the Father led to still more exact definitions, until the Church 
defined it expressly according to revealed doctrine. In the same 
way the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, whilst still undeveloped, 
was yet contained in the deposit of Faith, was presupposed to: 
exist, and lay at the foundation of the decisions of the Church. 
A definition of this truth would have been quite unnecessary in 
the Middle Ages, when it was universally believed. Only when 
her doctrines had been in some places obscured, in others re- 


94 Doctrine of Papal [nfatlrbility. 





jected, did the Church establish them more clearly and more 
firmly. But the doctrine of infallibility was, in fact, expressed 
in the fifth century, when Sixtus III. declared that upon the 
Pope was imposed the task of keeping pure the Church of God. 
Leo the Great says: ‘I govern the Church in the name of him 
whose confession was glorified by the Lord Jesus, and whose 
faith destroys all heresies.’ In the same century the Fathers 
assembled at the Fourth Council of Chalcedon declare: ‘ Peter 
has spoken through Leo. The statement already made [by the 
Pope] suffices. It is not allowable to change it.’ Gelasius I. 
declared the judgment of the Pope to be final; Gregory the 
Great said that it removed all doubt. Are not these utterances 
quite one with the doctrine of infallibility, and in accepting 
these and others similar, and in acquiescing in the decisions of 
the Popes, has not the Church always practically confessed the 
doctrine? Why did the people of Corinth, whilst still the 
Apostle St. John was living, have recourse to Rome, to the suc- 
cessor of St. Peter, to obtain from him a decision? Why do all 
bishops without exception apply to the Pope for decisions, 
and consider themselves accountable to him? Even heretics, 
from Valentinus, Cerdon, Marcion, Praxeas, the Montanists, and 
Sabellians downwards, have, undeterred by their ill success, per- 
severed in endeavouring to gain the Holy See to their cause, and 
to obtain a foothold in Rome. Surely these examples tell in favour 
of the infallibility of the Pope’s office of supreme teacher. 

St. Jerome in the fifth century testifies that the faith of 
Rome could not change, and that unity with the Pope was the 
test of Catholicity. St. Augustine, referring to the Pelagian 
heresy, shows he regards the decision of Rome as final. If, to 
weaken the force cf his words, it is objected that the rescripts 
from Rome merely ended the matter for St. Augustine and the 
Western patriarchates, we soon see that this is only an empty 
evasion. Could the Kast and the West have a different creed ? 
St. Augustine says further: ‘ Why desire another examination 
when the matter has already passed the Holy See? A con- 
demned heresy should not be examined into by bishops, but put 
down by Christian powers.’ Theodoret says: ‘This most holy 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 95 





See is set above all Churches on the face of the earth, for this 
reason amongst many, that it has never been defiled with the 
defilement of heresy, and that those who have occupied it have 
never taught heresy, but have always calmly guarded the apostolic 
gift.’ Theodoret certainly did not mean that up to that time as 
a matter of fact no Pope had failed in faith; he did not hold 
the supremacy of Rome to be transitory. In his letter to Leo, 
he declares that he is ready to submit to any decision whatever 
of the Pope’s. St. Peter Chrysologus says: ‘St. Peter still lives 
and takes precedence. He gives the true faith to those who 
seek it.’ Now no one can give that which he does not possess ; 
the successors of St. Peter must therefore possess the true faith. 
He gives it to those who seek it. He does not seek it by inquir- 
ing amongst the bishops, that by their assent it may found ; it 
is to be sought direct from him. Again, in the fourth century 
St. Ambrose declares, ‘ Where Peter is, there is the Church,” 
which he infers from St. Matt. xvi. 18; and in the third cen- 
tury St. Cyprian testifies that the Church of Rome has never 
erred in matters of faith. 


* Athanas. de Decret. Nic. Syn. n. 32. Socr. H. E. 1. iii. c. vii. 
Thom. Sum. p. 1. q. 29, a. 3, ad 1. 

* Petrus Chrysol. ep. ad Eutych. (Leon. M. ep. 25, Ball. i. p. 780). 

* Ep. cit. c. ii. p. 741 seq.: ‘In omnibus autem hortamur te, frater 
honorabilis, ut his, quae a beatissimo Papa Romanae civitatis scripta sunt 
(Gr. ypupdueva), obedienter attendas, quoniam B, Petrus, qui in propria 
sede et vivit et praesidet, praestet (Gr. didwor) quaerentibus fidei verita- 
tem.’ He thus lays down a general principle which cannot be limited to 
the ep. ad Flavian, with which the author is as yet unacquainted. 

* Ambros. in Ps. xl. n, 30, ed. Paris, 1686, i. p.879 : ‘ Retro erat Petrus 
et sequebatur eum, cum a Judaeis ad Caiphae domum, synagogae prin- 
cipis, duceretur. Ipse est Petrus cui dixit: Tu es Petrus, et super hanc 
petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam. Ubi ergo Petrus, ibi Ecclesia ; ubi 
Ecclesia ibi nulla mors sed vita aeterna, et ideo addidit: et portae inferi 
non prevalebunt ei. Et tibi dabo claves regnorum coelorum.’ 


§ 4. 

In the second century St. Irenaeus says :! ‘That with the 
Roman Church, because of her more powerful supremacy,? all 
Churches must agree,® since in her, by all the faithful on the 
earth,* the tradition of the Apostles has been preserved.” As 


96 Doctrine of Papal Infatlrbclty. 





this important passage plainly expresses the infallibility of the 
Pope, the opponents of the doctrine are at much pains to weaken 
it, and interpret it in their own manner. They give these ex- 
planations: from all Churches many travellers went to Rome, 
and there expounded their belief; and it hence arose that the 
belief and traditions of these Churches were the same as those 
of the Church of Rome. Or again: the faithful who journeyed 
to Rome preserved the Roman Church in the true faith.6 But 
if the faith of Rome were preserved pure by those who travelled 
to her, what end was served by her supremacy, a supremacy not 
of the city but the Church? Rome in this case must have learnt 
her doctrine from other Churches, not other Churches from Rome. 
But there came to Rome in those days many subtle and obstinate 
heretics, who were almost as numerous as the true believers. How 
was it she did not imbibe their doctrines? But above all, how in 
the still dominant heathen city could the foreign Christian pil- 
grims in the midst of persecution exercise such influence upon 
their scattered brethren? Would the Church, who holds so 
fast to her traditions, have yielded them to the strangers who 
collected around her? Ifshe yielded not, but separated herself 
from the other Churches, then the words of St. Irenaeus lose 
all force, for in that case she would no longer have taught the 
doctrine ofall Churches. Is it not much more probable that in 
case of any difference the travellers to Rome preferred to their 
own faith the faith of the Roman Church, the greatest Church 
and the most ancient, that happy Church into which, as Ter- 
tullian says,7 the Apostles poured out together with their blood 
their whole doctrine, and which St. Cyprian calls the head and 
mother Church ? 

St. Irenaeus, Renee does not appeal to the journeys to. 
Rome, but to the succession of bishops. And as it would be 
too long to number the succession of bishops in all Churches, he 
gives a short and sufficient way of proceeding ; for he says that 
to put false teachers to shame it suffices ‘ to declare the tradition 
received from the Apostles by the greatest Church, the most 
ancient, the most conspicuous, and founded and established at 
Rome by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, and 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradtiio. 97 





to declare the faith announced to men by this Church, coming 
even to us by the succession of bishops.’ His argument is as 
follows: If the faith of the Roman Church has remained pure, 
the faith of other Churches must also have remained so. For 
all Churches universally acknowledge the duty® of remaining in 
harmony with the Church of Rome, and if we know the faith 
of the Roman Church, we know that of all others. Finally, 
after enumerating the successors of Sf. Peter, he says that 
through this succession the doctrine of the Apostles has reached 
us, and that we have by it the fullest assnrance that the ancient 
faith will continue unchanged. 

The interpretation given by our opponents to this passage is 
quite untenable. It contradicts those of earlier theologians, of 
Gallicans® even, and those which they once held themselves. 
Its only true interpretation bears weighty testimony in favour 
of the doctrine of infallibility. For how could it be required of 
all Churches, that they should in matters of faith conform to the 
teaching of the Church of Rome (which Church is expressly 
, mentioned), if the Roman Church herself might fall into error ? 
Not without purpose does St. Ignatius the Martyr, the disciple 
of St. John, call the Church of Rome the president of love or of 
the league of love; and St. Cyprian, the most eminent of 
Churches, whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise, and 
in which all should be united in the unity of faith and love.}? 
She is the mother and mistress of all Churches.!% Sixtus IV. 
rejected the proposition, the Church of the city of Rome can 
err (in matters of faith) ; and Alexander VIII. condemned that 
whicn said the infallibility of the Pope in matters of faith is 
untenable. The rejection of the four Gallican articles also was 
accepted universally in the Church; and this prepared the way 
for the Church’s final decision. But other decisions of the Church 
had, without defining the infallibility of the Pope as an article . 
of faith, allowed it to be presumed, and contained it, though 
obscurely. 


1 §. Iren. Adv. Haer. 1. iii. c. iii. n, 2: ‘Ad hance [Romanam] enim ec- 
clesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire 
ecclesiam, hoc est eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his qui 
sunt undique conservata est ea quae est ab apostolis traditio.’ 


VOL, I. H 


98 Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 





2 Propter potiorem (al. potentiorem) principalitatem. Salmasius gives 
the Greek: éfaiperov mpwretov: Massuet, bréprepov mpwreiov: Gieseler, 
ixav@repay mpwretav: Armellini (De Philosophum, p. 25), txav@repay 
avdévriay. 

3 Convenire was clearly the Greek oupBaivey, as even Salmasius (De 
potest. Papae, c. v. p. 69, ed. Lugd. Batay. 1645) admits. The translator 
gives (1. iii. c. xii, n. 14) convenire for cuzgpwvety (Acts xv. 15). He also 
(l. iv. c. xxxv. n. 8) uses convenire for to harmonise, agree. Cf. also Hage- 
mann, Die Rém. Kirche, p. 614 seq. 

4 The Greek expressions of tavraxov and oi wavruxdbev are in ecclesi- 
astical use quite synonymous. St. Irenaeus himself explains the words 
qui sunt undique fideles by omnis ecclesia. 

5 If we here reduce the passive to the active we get more clearly: 
since in her all the faithful preserve the apostolic tradition; or in Latin: 
in qua hi qui sunt undique fideles servant eam, quae est ab Apostolis tra- 
ditionem. By using the passive we are reminded of the words of Optatus 
(De Schism. Donat. 1. ii. c. iii. Migne, PP. lat. xi. p. 947-949): ‘In qua 
une cathedra unitas ab omnibus servaretur ;’ and of St. Augustine’s expres- 
sion (ep. 43, ad Glorium, Eleus et Fel.): ‘ In qua (ecclesia) semper viguit 
apostolicae cathedrae principatus.’ The ‘in qua’ is to be taken in the 
ecclesiastical sense of the Greek proposition év, and thus can be taken as 
‘in her bosom,’ ‘in her communion,’ or ‘ through her,’ ‘ by virtue of her.’ 
Cf. the biblical and patristic expressions, év Kupi@, év Og, év TOUT KparuveTat, 
and others. The translator of St. Irenaeus often uses ‘ in’ for ‘ per:’ 1. iii. 
c. xii. n. 4: ‘Salutem in eo (Jesu) dedit hominibus:’ ¢. xviii. n. 1.: ‘ Ut 
quod perdideramus in Adam, hoc in Christo reciperemus:’ 1. iv. c. xxi. n.3: 
‘In Christo universa benedictio.’ Cf. also the famous év totrw via. 
Maret (vol. i. p. 152) omitted the ‘in qua,’ and rendered ‘ qui sunt undique 
fideles’ wrongly, as: ‘de tous les cétes les fidéles.’? Vide on this point 
Guéranger, The Supreme Teaching Office of the Pope, German transl. p.81. 

6 Friedrich, Tagebuch, p. 371. Cf. pp. 3, 4. Dodllinger, Erwigungen, 
p. 89. 

’ Tertull. de Praescr. c. xxxvii. Bossuet held it to be quite untenable 
to suppose that ‘ potentior principalitas’ applied to the city and not to the 
Church of Rome. Def. Declar. p. iii. 1. x. ¢. vi. t. ii. p. 198. 

8 Necesse est (avdykn). Thisis also used by old translators to signify 
a moral necessity (Schneeman, l.c. p. xxvii.), but it equally expresses the 
necessity of a law of nature (Hagemann, l.c. p. 618). 

® De Marea, de Conc. Sacerd. et Imp. 1.i. ¢. ii. n. 60: ‘Commune hoc 
officium communionis cum ecclesia Romana... .cognoverat ante omnes 
vetustissimus ille Lugdunensium antistes Irenaeus..... Quasi diceret, 
eam esse vim unitatis, quae principium et originem a Petri sede trahit, ut 
cum ea sentiendi necessitatem ceteris imponat.’ Stephan. Baluz. annot. 63, 
ad Cypr. Ep. 55. Feuardent et dela Bare in h.l. Iren. et Tert. praescr. 
c. xxxviii. Bossuet, Orat. in Comit. a. 1682, Instr. past. 2, super pro- 
miss. Kecl. Cf. Freppel, St. Irénée et la Primauté du Pape (separate copy 
from vol. iv. of his larger work, 1870). 

10 Friedrich, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, i. p. 409. Dollinger, 
Gesch. der Christ]. Kirche, i. p. 365 ff. 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 99 





1 Ton. ad Rom. init.: mpoxa@nuévn ths aydrns. Cf. Mohler’s Patrologie, 
p. 144. 

12 Cypr. Ep. 45, ad Cornel.; Ep. 55. Méhler’s Patrologie, p. 869 seq. 

13 Cone. Trid. Sess. vii. de bapt. can. 3; Sess. xiv. de extr. unct. 
cap. iii. ; Sess. xxii. de Sacrif. Miss. cap. viii.; Sess. xxv. decr. de delectu 
cibor. Conc. Later. iv. c. v. (c. xxviii. de Privil. v. 33). Also 1073, 
Gregory VII. 1. i. Ep. 15, ad fidel. Lomb. p. 297. Nicol. i. 865, Ep. 8 
(Mansi, xv. 187). Hinkmar of Rheims, de Divortio Loth. reg. Praef. says: 
‘De omnibus dubiis vel obscuris, quae ad rectae fidei tenorem vel pietatis 
dogmata pertinent, S. Romana ecclesia, omnium ecclestarum mater et ma- 
gistra, nutrix ac doctrix, est consulenda et ejus salubria monita sunt 
tenenda.’ The later Sorbonne acknowledges it also; for example, De- 
cretal of the 24th May 1664 (Du Plessis d’Argentré, t. iii, p. i. p. 106). 


§ 5. 

We come now to the formula of Pope Hormisdas in the year 
519. Dr. Dollinger, in his Church History, tells us it was sub- 
scribed at the time by two thousand five hundred bishops, and 
was confirmed by the Fathers of the Eighth General Council, a.p. 
869. The Vatican Council cites from it these words: ‘The first 
condition of salvation is to keep the rule of the true faith. Now 
the words of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot pass away, who 
said, “ Thou art Peter, and upon this rock 1 will build My 
Church” (St. Matt. xvi. 18); moreover these words have been 
made plain by the event, because in the Apostolic See the 
Catholic religion has always been kept undefiled, and the holy 
faith held in honour. Desiring therefore not to be in the least 
degree separated from the faith and doctrine of this See, we 
hope that we may deserve to be in the one communion which 
the Apostolic See preaches, in which is the entire and true 
solidity of the Christian religion.’ 

Many attempts are made to weaken the significance of this 
confession, which even Gallicans admitted. 

a, We hear it said that the copies of the text are at variance 
with one another, and that the originals are lost.1_ These varia- 
tions, however, do not touch the essential point, and are merely 
later additions, paraphrases, or abbreviations.? All copies con- 
tain these words: ‘ Therefore? in all things we follow the Apos- 
tolic chair, and preach those things which it has resolved upon.’ 
This presupposes the truth and infallibility of Papal decrees in 


100 Doctrine of Papal [nfallibclity. 





matters of faith, for the whole drift of the passage concerns the 
purity of that faith ‘which is always kept intact in the Apostolic 
See.’ In the formula ratified by the Eighth General Council it 
is further said: ‘ At the same time we bind ourselves not to per- 
mit the names of those to be mentioned in the celebration of the 
Holy Mysteries who have left the communion of the Catholic 
Church, that is to say of those who are not in union with the 
Apostolic See.’ To be a Catholic, and to be under obedience to 
the See of Rome, are here one and the same thing ; whosoever 
does not obey the Holy See is excluded from the Church. 

b. This formula is said to treat only of the primacy of the 
Pope. But the primacy of the Pope is preéminently one of 
doctrine,* and the formula of Hormisdas refers to the dogmatic 
definitions of the Holy See, and therefore to the teaching office 
of the Pope. 

c. It has been said that this formula treats merely of the 
Apostolic See;> but it is only through him who occupies it 
that the Holy See is free from error or can promulgate its 
decrees. Those things determined on by the Holy See are the 
decisions of the Pope. Whosoever binds himself to obey im- 
plicitly the Holy See presupposes that thé decisions of every 
occupant of the Holy See in matters of faith are infallible. 

d. If this formula of faith was first prescribed when one 
dogma, the Incarnation of the Son of God, was being treated of, 
still the terms used are quite general ones. It was, as Bossuet 
acknowledged, often repeated, and transmitted to all centuries 
from the Eighth General Council, at which, though the former 
question was not being treated of,’ the formula was proposed 
and sanctioned in quite general terms, and indeed as a neces- 
sary condition of participation in the proceedings. ‘ What 
Christian,’ Bossuet inquires, ‘could reject this profession of 
faith ?8 

e. Finally, it has been objected that this formula must be ex- 
plained by the words of Pope Gelasius and of St. Irenaeus, 
and that it possesses not much real weight. But hear Pope 
Gelasius ; he says: ‘The decretals of the most blessed Popes are 
to be received with reverence. The Apostolic See must guard 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 101 





the decrees of the Councils.’ Gelasius also says: ‘In matters 
concerning religion the Apostolic See possesses the supreme 
judicial power ; we are especially to learn from the Holy See 
the things that are of God.’ Further, he says that the See of 
Peter is the safest harbour for the weak,° the constant guide of 
the Universal Church ; that no court can reverse its decisions ; 
that it continually guards the true doctrine ; and that if it were 
to be spotted with any heretical perversity, which faith teaches 
us never can happen, there would be no power left for reclaim- 
ing those who had gone astray. 

Our opponents appeal to the ancient oath administered to 
the Popes, which contained the promise to maintain inviolable 
everything which had been defined by Councils or by decrees 
of former Popes, and to permit no change or diminution in the 
Gospel revelation.!° But this only presupposes what no one 
denies, that the earlier Papal decrees are inalterable and are 
binding upon later Popes. The Popes commonly issued their 
decisions at Councils, but they did not do so invariably, and as 
Pope Gelasius declares (A.D. 485) it was not necessary they 
should. In many documents a distinction is made between de- 
cisions by Councils and decisions by Popes alone. The Pope, 
however, as the Roman Synod of 485 declares, always decides 
everything as universal head by virtue of the promise given to 
St. Peter.1! These decrees of Councils issued by the Popes 
derived their force from the Popes, not from the greater or less 
number of assembled Italian!” bishops. If the early Popes 
commonly exercised their teaching office by Councils it was not 
necessary they should do so, and there is no reason the custom 
should be retained through succeeding ages. The Pope always 
will deliberate with bishops and theologians before deciding a 
disputed question ; the form of the deliberation may be conciliar 
or it may not. It was besides quite understood in those days 
that the decisions of General Councils were only fully valid 
when they had received the assent of the Pope.’ After the 
Council held at Ephesus a.p. 431 the Eastern bishops declared — 
* their conviction that the Pope could annul the resolutions 
there entered into. The Emperor Marcian only recognised 


102 Doctrine of Papal [nfatlibility. 





the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, a.p. 451, as indis- 
putable after their ratification had been issued by Leo the 
Great and published for all Churches.14 The words of St. 
Irenaeus, as we have already seen, tend as little as those of St. 
Gelasius to weaken the significance of the famous formula of 
Hormisdas. On the contrary, they correspond with it exactly. 
If, according to St. Irenaeus, all Churches must agree in faith 
with the Church of Rome, and if, therefore, all bishops are 
bound to follow the decisions of the Pope in matters of faith, 
both these propositions imply necessarily the infallibility of the 
Pope, not in his personal character, but when he speaks ex 
cathedra by virtue of his office as universal teacher and judge. 
The duty of rendering unconditional obedience to such decisions 
would be degrading and unreasonable, unless it were understood 
that they could contain nothing contrary to the true faith. 


1 Friedrich, Bonn Th. Lit. Bl. 1870, pp. 369,370. Cf. Synops. Observ. 
ap. Friedrich Doce. t. ii. p. 230, n. 22. 

2 Cardinal Pitra (Jur. Eccles. Graecor. Hist. et Monumenta, t. ii. 
Romae, 1868, p. 216 seq.), who lias compared the formula with the 
Vatican Codices, 4931, saec. xi. 3787, saec. xii. and 3786 and 4903, and 
twice with the copy of Menna and with that of Justinian, and has exactly 
compared it with the text in Mansi, Cone. viii. 407, 452, 467, 502, 734, 
847, 857, 870, ix. p. 37, speaks of the editorum Cohciliorum procuratores 
qui eidem saepe formulae offendere pertaesi modo eam suppresserunt, 
truncarunt modo, &c. Prof. Theil published in the same year, 1868, the 
2d Fasc. of his Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum Genuinae. 

3 In Mansi, viii. pp. 734, 847, we read: ‘ Anathematizamus omnes qui 
contra sanctam Romanam et apostolicam Ecclesiam superbiendo suas eri- 
gunt cervices, sequentes in omnibus Apostolicam Sedem.’ 

4 Thus according to Leo M. Ep. 5, c. ii. St. Peter (and his successors) 
received the primatus fidei from our Lord; and the Emperor Marcian 
addresses this Pope in these words: ‘ Your Holiness, who has the direction 
and supreme guidance in the divine faith.’ Theodoret, Ep. 116, p. 1324, 
attributes to the Pope the supremacy as well on other grounds as because 
of the inviolability of his See and its occupant, and the undisturbed preser- 
vation of the Apostolic grace. In a letter to Leo (Leon. Ep. 52, c. i.), with a 
reference to Romans i. 8, he makes mention of the faith amongst other 
prerogatives possessed by Rome, and declares himself (c. v. 6) ready to 
give absolute submission to the decisions of the Popes. 

5 Observationes quaedam de Infall. Eccl. Subjecto, Vindob. 1870, 
p. 28, § 5, according to Bossuet, Def. Decl. p. iii. 1. x. ¢. vii. t. ii. p. 201. 
Also Synops. n. 22, lc. 

6 Theodoret, ep. 116, speaks of the Apostolic See and its occupant. 
St. Jerome, whose words it is vain for Dr. Friedrich to misrepresent, 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 103 





speaks of the ‘cathedra’ and of Pope Damasus as identical; it is quite 
contrary to St. Jerome’s intention not to hold the Pope ‘ decernens,’ or to 
limit the ‘jubere’ to the command to other bishops to draw up a profession 
of faith (instead of its being done by the Pope himself). To support 
their theory our opponents have to do violence to the words of the 
Fathers. St. Peter Damian says quite correctly to the Pope: ‘ Tu ipse es 
sancta Sedes, tu es ecclesia Romana’ (Opp. iii. 221). Prosper (Opp. Aug. 
t. x. App. p. 176, ed. Paris, 1690) says the blessed chair of Peter speaks 
to the whole world by the mouth of Zosimus. 

7 We learn from the Acts of the said Council, Act iv. (Mansi, xvi. 337 
seq. 73 seq.; Hard. v. 816), that at that time strangers who arrived in 
Rome were obliged to subscribe a formula, confessing the true faith and 
their submission to all the decrees of the Apostolic See. 

8 Defens. Decl. Cleri Gall. l.c. § Omnes ergo. 

® Gelas. Ep. 14: ‘ Praestans Sedi, quam ipse benedixit, ut a portis inferi 
nusquam pro Domini promissione vincatur omniumque sit fluctuantium tu- 
tissimus portus.’ 

#0 Lib. Diurn. Rom. Pont. form. 84, p. 202, ed. Paris, 1869. 

1 Baron. a. 484, n. 26seq.. Mansi, vii. 1139: ‘ Unde nune causa An- 
tiochenae ecclesiae apud S. Petrum, collecti rursum delectioni vestrae 
morem qui apud nos semper obtinuit properavimus indicare. Quotiens 
intra Italiam propter ecclesiasticas causas, praecipue fidei, colliguntur 
Domini sacerdotes, consuetudo retinetur, ut successor praesulum Sedis 
Apostolicae ex persona cunctorum totius Italiae sacerdotum juzta sollici- 
tudinem sibi ecclesiarum omnium competentem cuncta constituat, qui caput 
est omnium, Domino ad B. Petrum dicente: Tu es Petrus, &..... Quod 
ergo placuit S. Synodo apud B. Petrum.... per Tutum ecclesiae defen- 
sorem, et beatissimus vir Feliz, caput nostrum, Papa et archiepiscopus 
judicavit, in subditis continetur.’ 

2 The Jansenist views about ‘Italian bishops’ are well known from 
their literature. 

13 Ferrand. Diac. (Migne, Ixvii. 925): ‘Qua (Sede Ap.) consentiente 
quidquid illa definivit Synodus (Chalc.) accessit robur invictum.’ Gelas. 
Ep. ad Episc. Dardan. et tom. de Anath. 

4 Leo M. Ep. 110, p. 1183 seq. ed. Ballerini. 


§ 6. 

But, our opponents tell us, obedience and faith are not one 
and the same thing. In themselves certainly they are not; 
there is obedience in action and obedience in faith! (Romans i. 
5). The first is a submission of the will, the latter a submission 
of the understanding. Faith is, according to St. Paul, a reason- 
able obedience. Obedience to decisions in matters of faith can 
only be an obedience of faith, an obedience of the intellect. It is 
in no sense a ‘new doctrine’ that am internal, not merely an ex- 


104 Doctrine of Papal [nfallibrlity. 





ternal, submission must be given to the decisions of the Supreme 
Head of the Church ; this was, on the contrary, firmly estab- 
lished in the decisions against the Jansenists. For the Jan- 
senists had admitted the Church’s right to decide questions of 
doctrine, but with reference to a matter of fact whether a cer- 
tain book contained false doctrine, they denied the infallibility 
of the ecclesiastical decision, and maintained that it was suffi- 
cient to preserve on the subject a respectful silence. Pope 
Clement XI., a.p. 1705, pronounced that a respectful silence 
was not equivalent to the obedience which the Church required. 
Since, therefore, outward faith, that is respectful silence, does 
not suffice, but inward faith, the true assent of the understand- 
ing, is required, it must be a question of obedience in faith. 
The teaching office of the Church rests on the commission re- 
ceived from Christ (Rom. x. 15, Matt. xxvii. 19, John xx. 21), 
and with it has been given the power of binding the faithful, 
under pain of exclusion from the Kingdom of Christ. The 
matters on which the highest office of the Church decides are 
matters of faith ; the end and aim of such decisions is no other 
than to lay upon the faithful the duty of believing. 

1 trakoh Tis miorews, Romans i. v. Faith is, according to Basil, Or. de 
Fide, t. ii. p. 250, ovyxaradeots adidKpitos Tey a&kovobévrwy: He requires 
the free will of men. Iren. Ady. Haer. iv. 37, n. 4, 5: ‘Sed quoniam 
liberae sententiae ab initio est homo, et liberae sententiae est Deus, cui 
ad similitudinem factus est, semper consilium datur ei, continere bonum, 
quod perficitur ex ea, quae est ad Deum, obedientia. Et non tantum in 
operibus sed etiam in fide liberum et suae potestatis arbitrium homines 


servavit Dominus dicens: Secundum fidem tuam fiat tibi, &c. 8S. Matthew 
ix, 29, 22; viii. 13; xxiii. 37, 38. John iii. 36.’ 


oot 

The Vatican Council appeals moreover to the Second Coun- 
cil of Lyons. The Greeks, with the approval of this Council, 
pronounced the following confession of faith: ‘ That the Holy 
Roman Church enjoys supreme and full primacy and princedom 
over the whole Catholic Church, which it truly and humbly 
acknowledges to have received with the plenitude of power 
from our Lord Himself in the person of blessed Peter, Prince 
or Head of the Apostles, whose successor the Roman Pontiff is, 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 105 





and as the Apostolic See is bound before all others to defend 
the truth of faith, so also if any questions regarding faith shall 
arise they must be defined by its judgment.’ Until now no 
theologian had dreamt of disputing the value of this or any 
of the other General Councils of the West.1_ The opponents of 
the Vatican Council have already gone so far as to reject all 
the General Councils after the ninth, as having been held under 
the ‘pressure of the Roman monarchy,’ an opinion denounced 
in 1617 by the faculty of Paris and in 1618 by that of Cologne 
as false, slanderous, and scandalous.” 

A striking testimony to which the Vatican Council has 
referred is afforded by the definition of the Council of Florence, 
A.D. 1438,° ‘that the Roman Pontiffis the true Vicar of Christ, 
Head of the whole Church, and the Father and Teacher of all 
Christians ; and that to him in blessed Peter was delivered by 
our Lord Jesus Christ the full power of feeding, ruling, and 
governing the whole Church.’ The power of teaching the whole 
Church must be includec in the supreme power here delivered 
to the successor of St. Peter for feeding, ruling, and governing 
the whole Church, and besides he is expressly called not 
merely Father but Teacher of all Christians. If the Pope is 
Teacher of all Christians, he is also Teacher of the bishops. If 
the bishops must follow the teaching of the Pope, the Pope 
must be infallible, or the Church would not be so.# 

This decree has always been very perplexing to the oppo- 
nents of the Holy See; hence they have sought in many ways 
to destroy its force. They affirm in the first place that the 
decrees have been falsified and that the original documents have 
disappeared.° But these assertions have been fully refuted. 
The originals have not disappeared. The so-called falsifica- 
tions appear in all the best authenticated copies,’ and are ac- 
cepted both by Catholic and non-Catholic theologians. The sen- 
tence, ‘ As it is contained in the Acts of the General Councils 
and in the Sacred Canons (the laws of the Church),’ is obviously 
a reference to earlier Councils and Church legislation, as cor- 
roborative testimony in favour of the primacy of the whole 
earth, but is in no sense a limitation of the primacy. How 


106 Doctrine of Papal Infalhbility. 





indeed could the supreme power conferred by Christ Himself, 
as the definition of the Council expresses it, be limited and 
restricted by conciliar acts and canons? 

But, we are told, the Council of Florence was not a General 
Council ; that at least it was not universally recognised as such. 
How do they prove this assertion? As though grasping at 
straws they oppose to the universal acceptance of the Council 
not by any means the opposition of the whole French or Ger- 
man Churches (though even this would be far from decisive), 
but only that of individual Frenchmen, who opposed it because 
they did not see how it could be made to fit with their Gallican 
system. But it was not a united opposition of the whole 
Gallican body. In the time of Louis XIV. Pirot says: ‘I 
know at the present moment no French Catholic who does not 
hold the Council of Florence to have been a General Council.’ 
Since that time all French theologians have admitted the 
Council of Florence to have been general, But this goes for 
nothing with our opponents, who style these theologians un- 
scientific. It becomes ludicrous when we find them appealing? 
to a single German text-book, Alzog’s Church history, which 
does not even dispute the ecumenical character of the Council of 
Florence, but merely omits it from the chronological list of 
General Councils given in the appendix, an omission which the 
latest edition of the book has repaired. We learn from Fried- 
rich’s Tagebuch (p. 314) that ‘the [German] bishops in a body 
hold the Council of Florence to be ecumenical. Hefele has 
demonstrated it to them ; he is not, however, very trustworthy 
in his doctrine upon the Councils’ (!), Dollinger also used to 
make no doubt that the Council of Florence was general. 

Other objections, that the number of bishops who met was 
small, and that the Council was not free, are quite valueless. 
The number of bishops is of no importance, since all were in- 
vited. Our opponents seem to use two kinds of weights and 
measures, since they take exception in this case at the small 
number of bishops assembled, but not in the case of the Council 
of Basle, where the number was even smaller. The charge of 
want of freedom is founded upon nothing more than the slanders 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 107 





of the schismatic Greeks, against whose testimony stands that of 
the orthodox Greeks and of the Latins. 


' Bossuet (lc. c. xxxiv. seq. p. 64 seq.) seeks to explain them in his 
favour. 

2 M. Anton. de Dominis, de Rep. Chr. 1. iii. ¢. x. n. 11: ‘ Concilia occi- 
dentalia ut Lateranense sub Innoc. III., Lugdumense sub Greg. X. et 
Florentinum, sub jugo Monarchiae Romanae ecclesiasticae jam dominantis 
gemendo applaudere tanto Monarchae sunt coacta.’ The faculty declares: 
‘Haec propositio est falsa, calumniosa et scandalosa’ (Du Plessis, t. ii. 
P. il. p. 109, prop. 43). 

3 Hard. Cone. ix. p. 424, ed. Rom. 1864, p. 320. 

* M. Canus, de loc. Theol. 1. vi. c. vii. Ballerini, de Vi ac Ratione 
Primatus, pp. 261-263. Append. ad Vindic. pp. 254, 259 seq. 

5 Janus, pp. 347, 348. Déllinger, in the Allgemeine Zeitung, 21st 
January 1871. 

§ Theodor Frommann, in the A. Z. 27th Feb. 1870. E.Cecconi, in the 
Armonia, Ist Feb. 1870. 

* In Florence (Cecconi, l.c.), in Rome in the precious Codex of the ar- 
chives of St. Peter, in Codd. Vatic. 4037, 4136 (Civilta Cattolica, quad. 478, 
ser. Vii. vol. ix.), also in the Carlsruhe copy. Gmelin, in Supplement of the 
A. Z. 24th August 1871. 

§ Turrecremata, super Decreto Unionis Graec. Venet. 1561, iv. f. 35. 
Bennettis, Privil. S. Petri, p. i. t. i. p. 486 seq. Ballerini, de Vi ac 
Ratione Primatus, t.ii. p.59 seq. Gerdil, Animadvers. in Com. Febronii 
posit. xi. Opp. xiii. vol. ii. p. 11. Beidtel, Canon Law, p. 395 seq. Schee- 
ben, Die Mannliche Kat. p. 29 seq. 

° Friedrich, A. Z. May 8, 1871. Tagebuch, p. 147 seq. Dollin- 
ger, lc. 


§ 8. 

Our opponents appeal likewise to the Councils of Constance 
and Basle. But these Councils were never occupied with. the 
question at present under consideration.1 The decrees of the 
Council of Constance referred to as declaring the Council above 
the Pope are not included by the Council amongst matters of 
faith, and have regard only to the case of a schism; by many 
contemporaries the application of their meaning was limited to 
those cases in which it was doubtful who was the legitimate 
Pope. But in fact they have none of the value of the decisions 
of a General Council. They were arrived at without due consul- 
tation, and by voting according to nationality, which was for- 
bidden by the church legislation. The party of the unlawful 
Pope John XXIII., who had convened the Council, was alone 


108 Doctrine of Papal [nfalhobrtity. 





represented there. Its decisions are opposed to those of the 
Second Council of Lyons, of the Council of Florence, and of the 
Fifth Lateran Council, by which last they were condemned and 
repealed. Only when, some time later, the lawful Pope Gregory 
XII. convened a Council, then resigned his dignity, and Martin 
V. was duly elected, could the assembly form a regular General 
Council. Martin only ratified those things which the Council 
had defined upon matters of faith in a conciliar manner. 

The Council of Basle, which a writer of that day rightly called 
a seed of heresy,? was headless and schismatical, and never met 
with acknowledgment from the Church. Eugenius IV. con- 
firmed the holding of the Council, but only under two conditions, 
neither of which was fulfilled. These were, first, that everything 
that the Council had done contrary to the authority of the Apos- 
tolic See should be declared null and void ; second, that his 
legates should have the virtual presidency. He never, however, 
ratified the canons of this assembly. The Holy See has never, 
as some pretend, granted to the Gerttan nation the right of not 
believing in the infallibility of the Pope. Only some of the 
Basle canons, upon matters of discipline, were by negotiations 
with the Holy See granted to the German nation. 

' Bouix, de Papa, t. ii. p. iii. p. 498 seq. 

* Bouix, t. i. pp. 499-530. 

3 Traversar, Epist. ed. Flor. 1759, t.ii. p. 50: ‘An vero Ephesina Sy- 
nodus est quam ista nocentior? Quis hoc sapiat, nisi plane desipiat? 
Non ex illa tantum perniciosi erroris, non majus seminarium haeresum 
effluxit, quam ex hoc furiosae multitudinis factione provenit. Et veretur 
sanctissimus Dominus N. segregariae isti turbae opponere ejusque vesa- 


niam apostolica auctoritate comprimere ac noxia illius germina evangelica 
falce praecidere ?’ 

* The Basle canons extended immoderately the resolutions of the 
Council of Constance, applying them to the undoubted and lawful Pope ; 
on which account Eugenius IV., Const. Moyses vir Dei (Rayn. a. 1439, 
n. 29; Du Plessis, t.i. Pp. ii. p. 239) declared: ‘Ipsasque propositiones 
-+..juxta pravum ipsorum Basileensium intellectum, quare facta demon- 
strant, veluti SS. Scripturae et SS. Patrum et ipsius Constantiensis Con- 
cilit sensui contrarium nec non praefatam assertam declarationis s. priva- 
tionis sententiam cum omnibus inde secutis et quae in futurum sequi 
possent, tamquam impias et scandalosas nec non in manifestam Kcclesiae 
Dei scissuram ac omnis eccl. ordinis et Christiani principatus confusionem 
tendentes ipso S. approbante Concilio (Flor.) damnamus et reprobamus ac 
damnatus et reprobatus nunciamus.’ 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. cg 





§ 9. 

In the third chapter of the dogmatic Constitution of the 
Church of Christ the Vatican Council declares: ‘That they err 
from the right path who assert that it is lawful to appeal from 
the judgments of the Roman Pontiffs to an Ecumenical Council, 
as to an authority higher than that of the Roman Pontiff.’ This 
has long been established by the Church. Martin V. forbade 
such an appeal at Constance,! whereby alone the canons pre- 
viously resolved upon were rejected. His successors have re- 
peatedly done the same thing.® Especially Pius II. and Julius 
II? If the decision of a Pope cannot be appealed against to a 
Council, it must in itself be final and unalterable. A final and 
unalterable decision in matters of faith must be infallible: other- 
wise we should have no certainty, and the infallibility of the 
Church would be an illusion. The definitions in matters of faith of 
a General Council have always been acknowledged to be infallible. 
If the decisions of the Roman Pontiff were not also infallible, 
an appeal from him, the fallible judge, to a Council, an infalli- 
ble judge, could never have been forbidden. Nature and reason 
would both have been against it. It would have been tyranny 
over men’s consciences to oblige them to accept the decisions in 
matters of faith of a fallible Pope from whose judgment no ap- 
peal was permitted. Ifa Papal decision could be rejected as not 
final, schism, that is separation, from the Pope would be allow- 
able in the Church ; the Church’s unity would be exposed to 
danger, and the faith of the Christian to uncertainty ; the suc- 
cessor of St. Peter could then in no true sense be called the 
centre of unity. Bishops are bound to follow the Pope as their 
Head and Teacher ; they are under the obligation of obedience 
to him.s Were the decisions ‘of the Pope not infallible and 
final, any bishop might contradict them, and would at the 
same time be bound to opposition and to obedience. Thus in 
the ancient principle, that there is no appeal from a Papal deci- 
sion to a higher authority, the doctrine of the infallibility of the 
Pope is clearly contained. It is in no wise a ‘ new doctrine ;’ it 
is only the doctrine of the Church newly offered for belief as part 


8 


110 Doctrine of Papal [nfallrbclity. 





of the revealed truth ; until the definition of the Vatican Coun- 
cil the contrary view had been tolerated, but not more than 
tolerated. It is not true to say that before the 18th July 1870, 
the doctrine of Papal Infallibility had been ‘ for centuries a mere 
opinion of the schools, quite freely defended and quite as freely 
attacked.”6 


1 Const. 10 Mart. 1418, Mansi, xxvii. 1199. Du Plessis, Coll. Judic. 
t. i. p. ii. pp. 215, 216. 

2 For instance, the appeal of the clergy of Rouen and of the University 
of Paris, under Calixtus III. (Raynald. a. 1458, n. 55); that of the Duke 
Sigismund of Austria and of the Archbishop of Mayence (Raynald. 
a. 1460, n. 23; a. 1461, n. 16, 21); that of the Venetians against Julius II., 
and others. 

s Pius II. Const. Exsecrabilis, 1459, Bull. i. 369. Gobelin, ap. Hard. 
ix. 1441. Rayn. a. 1460,n.16. Julius II. Const. Suscepti regiminis, Bull. 
i. 501. 

4 Canus, de loc. Theol. 1. v. c. vi.; 1. vi. c. vii. Cf. Zaccaria Antifebr. 
1. iv. c. v. p. 37 seq. 

5 The Sorbonne also frequently expressed the duty of obedience 
for all. 

6 Berchtold, p. vi., who appeals to Bossuet as a good Catholic. He 
proved himself so in many excellent writings, but not in his line of action 
after 1682. He was not blamed for having confined himselfin his contro- 
versy with the Protestants merely to the recognition of the ‘dogmata ex- 
pressa.’ His Defensio Declar. Cleri Gallicani, left unfinished by him- 
self, first appeared thirty years after his death with many interpolations. 
His Mandement of August 16th, 1699, retracted many things (Université 
Catholique, April 1852, livr. lxxvi. Cf. Bausset, Vie de Bossuet, 1. x. 
0; X51). 

§ 10. 

The famous divines of the thirteenth century, whose adhesion 
to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility is admitted by our opponents, 
are supported in their belief by the theologians of the twelfth 
century. St. Bernard says: The authority of the Papal decrees 
is unalterable. Any injury to the faith should be repaired there, 
‘where the faith cannot fail, for this is the privilege of the 
Apostolic See.’ Until the middle of the last century the doctrine 
of infallibility was received universally except in France! And 
even in France its supporters were not insignificant.2 The theo- 
logical faculty of Paris long upheld this doctrine, and only em- 
braced the contrary opinion in consequence of severe measures, 


particularly the dismissal of several of its members who were 


Evidences of Scripture and Tradition. 111 





most friendly to the Popes. The history of this faculty is a 
proof that professors, ‘ men of learning,’ as such afford no security 
for the maintenance of the purity of the faith. In 1661 the 
Archbishop Peter de Marca, who was affected with Gallicanism, 
said in a treatise which he dictated from his deathbed: ‘The 
doctrine of Papal Infallibility is the only one accepted and taught 
in Italy, Spain, and other Christian lands, therefore the contrary 
opinion of the schools is only tolerated. The majority also of 
French jurists and theologians accept this doctrine, and hold 
the opinion of the Sorbonne in derision.’ 

The fallibilist doctrine, in opposition to the teaching of the 
Church, was permitted as long as there was no final decision on 
the subject. But a denial of the infallibility of any individual 
Papal decision on doctrinal subjects was never allowed. The 
Head of the Church has always required submission to its de- 
cisions on matters of faith. The contrary opinion has been 
several times disapproved, as is shown by the propositions al- 
ready cited which were rejected by Innocent XII., Alexander 
VIII., and Sixtus IV., as well as by other decisions. 

In Germany until the middle of the last century the doctrine 
of Papal Infallibility was universally acknowledged. Gallicanism 
and the fallibilist doctrine met with no representatives under 
imperial or princely patronage until after the publication of the 
work of Febronius in 1763. It was furthered by the influence 
of rationalism. In 1767, Kauffmanns, a theologian of Cologne, 
was still able to say: ‘The fallibility of the Pope has been 
taught by no German, Flemish, or Belgian bishop in synod or 
pastoral, nor by any public school in Northern or Southern 
Germany. And in modern times the University of Louvain,® 
and the Colleges of Prague,® Cologne,’ Ingolstadt, Wiirzburg,§ 
and others, have defended the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. It 
has not been defended by Jesuits alone, but by their contem- 
poraries in other orders, as well as amongst the secular priest- 
hood,® under the eye of princes, bishops, and the whole clergy. . 
Until Febronius, Protestants always held Catholics to believe 
the infallibility of the Pope. Especially in Austria, the con- 
trary doctrine was chiefly introduced by State authority, which 


a Doctrine of Papal [nfatllibrlity. 





ordered new school-books and catechisms.1° And precisely in 
the degree in which men departed from Catholic principles did 
they combat the doctrine of infallibility ; and as they returned 
to be of one mind with the Church, in the same proportion did 
they cling to the old doctrine. This is shown by numerous 
provincial synods, held quite of late years, which have declared 
the infallibility of the Pope’s office of teacher. For example, 
the Synods of Cologne in 1860, of Rheims in 1857, of Colozka in 
1864, of Westminster in 1852, of Baltimore in 1843 and 1852, 
and of St. Louis in 1835 and 1858. 

Thus the doctrine now declared of faith and binding for ever 
upon all Catholics, the infallibility of the teaching office of the 
Pope, is not new. It would be much more true to call the fal- 
libilist doctrine new—a doctrine contrary to the teaching and 
practice of the Church, and which has only been now and then, 
and here and there asserted. . 


1 Bened. XIV. Ep. ad Inquis. Hispan. 1748, Opp. xv. 117, ed. 
Venet. 

2 Amongst them were: Andr. Duval, M. Maucler, Coesseteau, A. Char- 
las, the Benedictine abbot Petitdidier—who in the introduction to the 
work De Auctoritate et Infallibilitate Sum. Pont. expresses the firm con- 
viction of the supporters of Papal Infallibility, that if the question were 
submitted to an Ecumenical Council for definition, in which ‘ cuique libere 
mentem suam aperire licitum foret’ (which in France at that time was 
not the case, owing to the oppression of the Government), it would decide 
in favour of the Pope. Tournely also feels himself circumscribed by the 
despotic theology of the court. 

3 Truly astonishing is the representation made by the Paris Faculty 
to Greg. XIII. against the reformation of the Calendar (Du Plessis, t. ii. 
p. i. p. 453 seq.), in which ‘ mathematici et astrologi’ are called detestable 
in the opinion of the old imperial laws, and a new time for Easter was 
represented as prejudicial to the Catholic Faith. It was contradicted 
later that this document belonged to the Faculty. It belonged at any 
rate to several of its members (cf. Op. cit. i. Append. p. xxiv.). 

4 Pro Statu Ecclesiae Cath. et Leg. Potestate Romani Pontificis Apo- 
logetic Colon. Agr. 1767, p. 151. 

5 The ‘ Lovaniensis doctrina’ is combated especially in the Defensio 
Declarationis Cleri Gallic. Cf. Reussen’s Syntagma Doctrinae Theolog, 
Adriani V. Lovan. 1862, p. 152. Bouix, le. t. ii. pp. 111-120. The 
University of Louvain has in our day expressly petitioned for the defini- 
tion of Papal Infallibility, which it has always supported. 

6 As early as the opinion against Huss (Du Plessis, i. ii. p. 162): 
‘Communitas cleri....semper tenet et credit fideliter sicut Romana 


Political Effect of the Dogma. ai 





Ecclesia, et non aliter, quod in omni materia Catholica et ecclesiastica 
standum est fidei, sententiae et determinationi Sedis Apostolicae et Rom. 
Ecclesiae, eo quod Papa existens caput et collegium Cardinalium existens 
corpus Rom. Ecclesiae sunt in officio ecclesiastico cognoscendi et deffini- 
endi causas ecclesiasticas veri successores principis Apostolorum Petri et 
aliorum Apostolorum.’ 

7 Zaccaria, Antifr. Vind. diss. v. c. ii. n. 3, upon the censure of 1618 
of M. A. de Dominis; also 1765, the condemnation of Febronius. 

8 Henricus Kilber, in Theol. Wirceburg, t.i. Wirceb. 1771, disput. ii. 
c. iii. a. 4, pp. 496-530. J. Neubauer, Vera Religio Vindicata, Wirceb. 
1771, diss. viii. sect. 1, p. 342. 

® Amongst them the Benedictines Gallus Cartier (Auctoritatis et In- 
fallibilitas Summorum Pontificum, Augsburg, apud A. M. Heiss, 1738, 4) 
and Celestine Oberndorffer (Theol. in usum Frising. Lycaei, 1762), the 
Capuchin Thomas ex Charmes (Theologia Universa, Nantzig, 1755, ed. 2, 
vol. i. p. 347 seq.), Canon Eusebius Amort (Theol. Aug. et Wirceb. 1752), 
the Minorite Anton Wissingh, Prof. in Treves (Medulla Totius Theologiae, 
Treves, 1695, seq. 336, Rump. p. 15). 

10 Lonovies, Der Josephinismus, Vienna, 1851. Beidtel, Untersuchun- 
gen uber die Kirchl. Verhiltnisse in den Osterr. Staaten (Researches into 
the Condition of the Church in Austria), Vienna, 1849. Rive, Die Unfehl- 
barkeit des Papstes, Paderb. 1870, p. 130 seq. 


Part III. Pouiricat Errect oF THE DoGMA. 


§ 1. That the dogma injures civil allegiance was asserted by the Jansenists 
and the opponents of the Vatican Council, but not proved. § 2. Con- 
duces rather to the peace and prosperity of the State. § 3. Why the 
doctrine not long ago recognised as dangerous? § 4. The change not 
in the Church but in the State. 


$1. 

The third charge laid by its opponents against the doctrine 
of infallibility is that it is injurious to civil allegiance. There 
is nothing new in this, for the Jansenists asserted it also, and 
even the mode of proof adopted by the opponents of our day is 
borrowed by them from the Gallicans. Through Colbert, Le 
Tellier, and De Lyonne, the Jansenists succeeded in persuading 
Louis XIV. of France that the doctrine of the infallibility of 
the Pope imperilled his throne. The Advocate-general Talon 
was well served by the Jansenists, and by his management the 
parliament required the theological faculty not to defend any 
doctrine in which the infallibility of the Pope was either directly 
or indirectly contained. And as the faculty refused to accept 

VOL, I. I 


114 Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 





this decree, compliance was forced upon them in these terms: 
‘ Every subject of the king is bound to submit absolutely to any 
order issuing from the courts of law.’ We too have seen the 
dogma of the infallibility of the Pope declared incompatible 
with civil allegiance ;} we have heard it said that it has com- 
pletely transformed the Church, and made it impossible that 
any State should recognise her without political suicide ! 

The proof of the political dangers arising from the doctrine 
of Papal Infallibility is founded upon those perversions of the 
Church doctrine with which we have been dealing; false infer- 
ences have arisen from false propositions. If the definition of 
the 18th July 1870 be dangerous to the State, the Catholic 
Church herself must be so, and that, not from this date, but 
from the beginning. For the Church has always claimed infal- 
libility. Itis admitted that the infallibility of a General Coun- 
cil has always been believed in the Church; and this would 
have been equally prejudicial to civil obedience with the infal- 
libility of the Pope. Only those who hold that the doctrine of 
the Church is hostile to the welfare and wellbeing of society? 
could bring forward such a charge. Were not the decrees of 
the Pope always considered binding, and was not obedience to 
them always required from the faithful? What difference, then, 
is it to the State that since the 18th of July 1870 these decrees 
in matters of faith are pronounced infallible, when before that 
date they were practically binding and compelled obedience ? 
Every supreme court claims the right of making a final judg- 
ment, with which all must rest content and from which there is 
no appeal; by a necessary legal fiction it claims a kind of in- 
fallibility (formal as opposed to material infallibility). This 
kind of infallibility was without hesitation attributed to Papal 
decisions ; there could be no appeal from the judgment of the 
Pope. But if this formally unassailable judgment is for Catholics 
also materially unassailable, this concerns purely the internal 
domain of faith, and has nothing to do with the State. In- 
jurious consequences might equally follow merely formal infal- 
libility.2 For example, certain sects have dogmas forbidding 
them to take an oath or fight in war. The State does not care 


Political Effect of the Dogma. 115 





whether the authority which promulgates these dogmas reckon 
itself infallible or no; it is only concerned with them in their 
relation to civil life. Let any one point out one single actual 
dogma of the Church which is dangerous to the State. Of all 
the opposition writings, which repeat the charge over and over 
again, not one can substantiate it. The possibility of the abuse 
of Papal Infallibility is their strong point. But this for Catho- 
lics implies a contradiction. For the infallibility of the Pope 
rests upon the assistance of the Holy Ghost, which excludes 
all possibility of its abuse; it has reference to the doctrine 
of the Church in faith or morals founded upon truths divinely 
revealed, which can never be dangerous to the State. The 
Church cannot ‘make new doctrines at pleasure ; she can only 
develop, explain, and confirm those doctrines which are hers 
already, derived from the sources of revelation, Scripture, and 
tradition. It is therefore quite as impossible that the State 
should be endangered by an abuse of the teaching office of the 
Pope as by any of the truths of revelation. Papal decrees did 
not first become infallible on the 18th July 1870, but were then 
universally declared to be so ; they really were as infallible before 
that date as afterwards. And in all the ages of Christianity not 
one single instance of the abuse of this power has been esta- 
blished. It is a matter of complete indifference to the State 
whether a Papal decision be in itself infallible, or whether, as 
Gallicans taught, it becomes so only when it has received the 
consent of the Church ; for the consent of the Church can never 
be wanting to a Papal decision, since the Pope and the bishops 
can never be separated. If individual bishops act in opposition 
to the Holy See, the State gains nothing but a schism, which is 
productive of good to no country. Papal Infallibility extends 
no further than the infallibility of the Church ;* it is, in fact, 
one and the same. According to:the words of the Vatican 
Council, the Roman Pontiff, ‘is possessed of that infallibility 
with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should 
be endowed.’ If this is fraught with danger to the State, the 
infallibility of the Church must have always been so. ‘The de- 
finition leaves us thus. Either we are Catholics, in which case 


116 Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 





we cannot hold that danger to the State can arise from the doc- 
trine of the Church regarding faith or morals, and we must 
submit to the decisions of the Church; or we are no longer 
Catholics, and reject the doctrine of the infallibility of the 
Church as well as of the Pope. He can possess no claim to 
be called a Catholic who, after the definition of the Council, 
after the agreement of the assembled bishops with the Pope 
(which even Gallicans admitted to be without a Council sufficient 
to establish a doctrine of the Church), refuses to believe, not 
merely the infallibility of the Pope, but also that of the Council, 
the episcopate in union with the Holy See. Frohschammer has 
truly said: ‘If you hold the Pope to be fallible, you cannot 
maintain the infallibility of the Church.’ The Protestant Hase 
acknowledged that ‘every argument against the infallibility of 
the Pope deals a blow underhand to the infallibility of the 
Church.’ 


1 Dollinger, Erklirung, 18th March 1871. A. Z. 31st March. 

2 Syll. Prop. xi. Ene. 9th Nov. 1846, and Alloc. 20th April 1849. 

3 Beidtel, Das Canonische Recht, p. 62 seq. 

* It is quite a groundless assertion that the idea of infallibility was 
unknown tothe early Church. For (1) it is clearly denoted when, as is done 
in Scripture and the writings of Irenaeus, the teaching of those who preside 
over the Church is declared to be binding, absolute truth, the word of Christ, 
and aninviolable rule. (2) The word aopdAcia is not wanting, and is an 
exact equivalent for the Latin ‘infallibilitas.’ It is only necessary to 
point out Theodor the Studite and Greg. II. (Ep. 1, ad Leon. Is.), who use 
the adverb acguaés, or the adjective aopadés, in this sense. 


§ 2. 

But let us ask—would the minds now so sorely troubled be 
at rest if the Pope were fallible instead of infallible? As Head 
of the Church he could, in the former case, bind the faithful to 
obedience as well as in the latter case ; but Catholics could not 
with equal tranquillity of mind submit to his decisions. It con- 
duces far more to the welfare and peace of the State that any 
disputes which may arise between Catholics should be forth- 
with and once for all settled than that a decision of the supreme 
teacher of the Church could be met from one year’s end to 
another with objections of material error. A Church not under 


Political Effect of the Dogma. 117 





the direct guidance of God might cause anxiety to the State ; 
the definition of the 18th July 1870, far from occasioning such 
anxiety, dispels it. Had the Pope been declared fallible, then 
indeed cause would have existed for apprehension of an abuse 
of the power which, in his office of supreme teacher, he would 
still have possessed. Since, however, it was defined by the 
Church that whenever he exercises his office of supreme teacher 
he is directly assisted by the Holy Ghost, any apprehension of 
this kind is excluded. 

The Church can never break with her past history. She 
can never define a dogma in opposition to what she has always 
believed. Otherwise all our Lord’s promises to her would be © 
unfulfilled, and she would be lost. ‘The same Holy Spirit,’ 
wrote Bossuet to Leibnitz, ‘who prevents the Church from 
diminishing the faith, guards her also from adding to it (any- 
thing heterogeneous) ; therefore she must have been preserved 
as well from useless as from erroneous definitions.’ 

By the definition of Papal Infallibility the Church has given 
its deathblow to Gallicanism, and has brought fresh proof of 
her own wonderful vitality and unity in conflict with the few 
opponents who have appeared now as on all similar occasions. 
Civil authority, as ordained by God, has nothing to fear and 
much to hope from such a Church. True Catholics make no 
revolutions ; they are the victims of revolutions which others 
excite. They yield a faithful and inviolable obedience to - 
authority, not from fear or favour of men, but because such is 
the will of God, who has ordained it. If, however, anything is 
required of them contrary to their creed or their conscience which 
cannot be lawfully done, especially not by a government pledged 
to allow liberty of conscience, then, relying upon the words ‘We 
must obey God rather than men,’ they offer, and must offer, a 
passive resistance, but even then nothing more. Popes would 
rather lose their throne than dispossess a lawful prince ;. their 
deeds and words have never been revolutionary, but are always - 
directed to the maintenance of order. ‘The enemies of the 
Church,’ the Pope said in a speech in 1871, ‘are afraid of the 
priesthood, are afraid of good Catholics, are afraid of the preach- 


118 Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 





ing of the Word of God, but they have no fear of the sects 
which are eating away the heart of society, subverting thrones, 
and destroying social order.’ They seek to conceal dangers 
which are close at hand from other sources, and designate the 
Church, with its Papacy, orders, and priesthood, as inimical to 
the State. They impute all manner of pretensions to the Popes, 
and assert it to be probable that at some future period these 
pretensions will be ‘made dogmatic ;? hence they conclude that 
the dogma of infallibility is dangerous to the State, and that 
those who believe it cannot be good subjects. But in truth not 
merely the infallible teaching office of the Pope, but the whole 
of positive Christianity, is incompatible with that liberal State 
absolutism which acknowledges no right save its own. 


§ 3. 

Did the Church lose her identity by the definitions of the 
Council of Trent or of any earlier Council? Has she not the 
right to declare that a doctrine not always expressly held to be 
so is part of the revealed truth? Was this her right only 
during the first ages of Christianity? Has she lost the right to 
decide any dispute or question which may arise upon the truths 
of revelation? Yet she is said now to have lost her identity 
because, retaining all former articles of faith, she has brought 
forward another which is new not in substance but only in 
form, because she has drawn the logical conclusion from long- 
existing decrees, because she has decided a dispute of long 
standing, and issued a positive decision about the bearer of that 
infallibility which has always belonged to her. Why was not 
this doctrine considered dangerous to the State in o!d times? 
It was not found to be so either by the Kings of Spain and 
Portugal, or by the Emperors of Germany ; not by the dukes 
and electors of Bavaria, nor by the ecclesiastical princes of 
- Germany, although it was maintained before them openly, both 
verbally and in writing ; nay rather they took it for granted, 
since they besought the Holy See for dogmatic definitions, and 
styled the Pope interpreter of the decisions of God and in- 


Political Effect of the Dogma. 119 





fallible teacher ;! they never put a stop to the use of catechisms 
in which this doctrine was taught. 

The united Church of the Palatinate is an instance of a 
Church which may truly be said to have ‘changed,’ for in its 
new Protestant catechism it discards the fundamental doctrine 
of the Trinity. This has met with no opposition, and though 
scarcely now entitled to the name of Christian in the old sense 
of the word, no one has called this Church a ‘new Church,’ 
‘which has not, therefore, yet been recognised by the State.’ 
Yet this has been said of the Catholic Church, although the 
Church which the State recognised as Catholic had the Pope 
at her head and the bishops in union with him for her pastors. 
This is the one Catholic Church. Whosoever casts himself from 
the rock of the Church separates himself from his lawful 
pastors, and refusing obedience to the Church, is no longer a 
Catholic. He may call himself Jansenist, or Dollingerite, or 
what he will; but Catholic he is not, neither old Catholic nor 
new, for that is a contradiction in terms. Catholic means 
universal, in time as well as in place. Was the Church recog- 
nised as the Catholic Church ever separated from the Pope and 
the lawful bishops? Was the Jansenist sect, to which the new 
opponents of the Church have joined themselves, ever recognised 
as the Catholic Church ? 

1 Vide a letter of the converted Duke Rudolph Max of Saxony, the 


27th May 1628 (Hortus Pastorum Auctore J. Marchontio, Colon, Agr. 
1699, p. 193). 
§ 4. 


No, the Church has not changed ; it is the State which has 
changed, for it now contests and denies to the Church the 
rights it once recognised as hers ; it foments and favours schism 
and makes new laws to her disadvantage, until by grasping more 
and more at theological jurisdiction, and by usurping the office 
of supreme judge in matters of faith, it is pressed onwards to a 
denial of Christianity. 

But the Church is said to have become dangerous to the State 
because she has now declared theoretically as an article of faith 
that which in practice has long been acknowledged. But is 


120 Doctrine of Papal [nfallbility. 





she to be denied all further development,! whilst the State is to 
follow out to their remotest consequence the principles contained 
in itself? The Pope, unfettered from without, has always in all 
ages guarded the rights of the Universal Church from encroach- 
ment from the various States. Why should the doctrine be 
thus feared if the practice has not proved dangerous to the 
State 1 

The fact is people argue upon a misconception. They talk 
of Papal omnipotence and a deified Pope instead of an infallible 
teacher invested with full powers. From this distorted doctrine 
they draw inferences even more strange. The misrepresenta- 
tions have been already exposed. The false suppositions and 
inferences will be examined in detail in the following essays. 


1 Even the Paris theologians had in 1324 declared that it belonged to 
the Church of Rome to decide what things were to be held as of faith, she 
being the universal rule of Catholic truth (Du Plessis, t. i. Pp. i. p. 222): 
they had petitioned John XXII. in 1333 for a definition on the controversy 
about the ‘visio beatifica’ (ib. p. 318); and in 1388 one of its members 
attributed to the bishops in matters of faith an auctoritas inferior et subor- 
dinata binding only secundum quid; but to the Pope, the summa simpliciter 
et absoluta (ib. Pp. ii. pp. 76, 84-86). John of Paris (died a.p. 1304) 
described the Pope as the ‘ superior in spiritualibus, per cujus sententiam 
controversiae terminentur’ (de Pot. Reg. et Pap. c. iii.), and declared 
himself ready to retract, if anything contrary to his doctrine were shown 
to be determinatum per sacrum canonem aut per Ecclesiam aut per generale 
Concilium aut per Papam, qui virtute contenet totam Ecclesiam (Du Plessis, 
. i. P. i. p. 264). 


ESSAY III. 
THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 


Catuouics have ever held to be infallible a General Council 
lawfully convoked—that is, that a Council representing the whole 
Church, and dealing with decisions on doctrines of faith and 
morals, cannot err. Every catechism teaches this; it is con- 
tained in the thirty-nine articles published by Martin V., treat- 
ing of the followers of Wickliff and Huss,! as well as in the creed 
of Pius IV., which is in universal use.2. Any one who opposes 
the decrees of such a Council has cut himself off from the Catho- 
lic Church. Moreover, as has been already shown, though no 
Council had been held, the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope 
in his office of teacher would still be certain, even according to 
Gallican teaching, from the fact that the Pope and bishops agree 
in proposing this dogma to the faithful as a doctrine of faith, thus 
proving the agreement of the whole teaching Church. For it is 
the universal Catholic doctrine that the faithful are bound to 
believe all that is taught and proposed to their belief by the Pope 
and the bishops. 

Let us now see (1) who are the adversaries of the Vatican 
Council ; (2) what they allege against it ; (3) what they propose 
in its stead. 


Part I. Toe Opponents oF THE Councit HERETICS. 


§ 1. Their inconsistency in rejecting the dogma of the Immaculate Con- 
ception. § 2. Their grounds and principles throughout heretical, 
Protestant. § 3. Likewise their proceedings. Comparison with those 
of the Arians. § 4. Comparison with those of the Donatists. § 5. 
All heretics reproach the Church with being corrupt. § 6. Connection 
with Jansenism. § 7. Their want of unity in contrast with the unity 
of the Church. 


122 The Vatican Council. 





es 

The opponents of the Vatican Council reject also the dogma 
of the Immaculate Conception ; but the dogma of the Immacu- 
late Conception was defined in 1854, sixteen years earlier, and 
was only rejected by the Janus party in 1870. Either it was not 
known until then that this dogma ought to be rejected, or this 
was known, and silence was still maintained. The first suppo- 
sition does small honour to the penetration and theological know- 
ledge of the party, while the last represents it as hypocritical, 
and unfit rightly to instruct its contemporaries. Moreover, the 
Immaculate Conception had been already defined at the Council 
of Basle,’ whose decisions concerning the Papal rights are re- 
vered by this party. Why, then, are not its decisions on the pri- 
vileges of the Mother of God to be equally revered? In this 
case no Pope ‘imposed’ the dogma; the members of the Coun- 
cil alone proclaimed it.. Had the Council of Basle been a Gene- 
ral Council, the definition of Pius IX. in 1854 would not have 
been needed. . Those who in 1870 for the first time suddenly 
rise up against this definition, and declare it to have been brought 
about ‘by means of fabrications and falsehoods,’ involve them- 
selves in an endless contradiction, for whilst in the one case they 
take their stand upon the Council of Basle, in the other they 
are forced to reject it. In either case they do away with the whole 
authority of the Council of Basle by maintaining that it defined 
as an article of faith a doctrine founded on fabrications and 
falsehoods. If this be so, the Council of Basle should be more 
severely censured than the Popes, who waited more than four 
hundred years before making a decision. Moreover, before the 
definition, Pius IX. obtained in writing the opinion of the 
bishops and religious bodies, which was not done at Basle ; and 
yet the Council of Basle is loaded with praise, and those decrees 
alone are rejected which are not found to be agreeable. 

By such conduct the true character of the new Protestants is 
made known. With Luther they overthrow all authority of 
Councils ;t they believe only so much as pleases them; they 
believe not God and the Church, but their own judgment and 


Opponents of the Council Heretics. 123 





their own self-will.® They will be forced at last, as a layman 
expressed it at the new Protestant meeting at Munich in 1871, 
to go back as far as, or even farther than, the refor vers of the 
sixteenth century, ‘to primitive Christianity, not to Councils, 
but to the time of Christ and the Apostles.’ 


1 Denzinger, Enchir. p. 194, n. 551-553. 

2 Tb. p. 294, n. 867. 

3 Sess. 36. 

4 Vide Luther’s proposition condemned by Leo X., 1520 (Denzinger, 
Enchir. p. 223, n. 653) : ‘ Via nobis facta est enervandi auctoritatem Con- 
ciliorum,’ &c.; designated also by the Sorbonne as ‘ prop. schismatica et 
haeretica, si velit Scriptor licitum esse cuipiam Concilii legitimi auctori- 
tati contradicere in iis, quae fidem et mores concernunt’ (Du Plessis, t. i. 
P. ii. p. 372). 

5 §. Thom. 2, 2, q. 5, a. 3: ‘Ile qui inhaeret doctrinae Ecclesiae tam- 
quam infallibili regulae, omnibus assentit, quae Ecclesia docet; alioquin 
side his, quae Ecclesia docet, quae vult tenet, et quae non vult non tenet, 
non jam inhaeret Ecclesiae doctrinae, sed propriae voluntati.’ Aug. c. 
Faust. xiii. 3: ‘Quod volunt, credunt, quod nolunt, non credunt, sibiqué 
potius quam divino Evangelio credunt.’ 


§ 2. 

The opponents of the Council are completely Protestant in 
their point of view. In all their utterances may be traced the 
Protestant principle, which puts the subjective interpretation of 
the Word of God by individuals in the place of the living 
teacher, outwardly visible to all men. The ‘ Protesting Catho- 
lics’ of to-day set against the definitions of a General Council 
their own subjective examination of its decrees ; these they de- 
clare to be contrary to Scripture and tradition, and they revile 
the most glorious Council the world has ever seen as ‘a false, 
flattering, and dishonest Synod, a godless Council,’ and so forth.' 
The Protestants of the sixteenth century brought precisely. the 
same charges against the Council of Trent, and often with less 
violence. 

But how would disputes ever come to an end if each indi- 
vidual was free to set aside the decrees of the Church on the plea 
of following Holy Scripture, in other words, his own fancies 
about Holy Scripture? Ifa Council be confirmed by the Head 
of the Church, this fact alone is sufficing proof that it is a gather- 


124 The Vatican Council. 





ing of the rightful Church, the pillar and groundwork of truth 
(1 Tim. iii. 15). It is true that we are to prove spirits, whether 
they be of God (1 St. John iv. 1), and Christ teaches us the same 
when He warns us to beware of false prophets (St. Matt. vii. 15). 
But we have sufficing proof that a doctrine is from God if it be 
proposed to us by our rightful teachers and by the chief pastor, 
especially if it be confirmed by the agreement of the remainder 
of the bishops of the Church.? Ifa man refuses to submit to 
these, and claims a right of passing judgment upon his judges, 
he renders no obedience to the decrees passed by the authorities 
of the Church, through whom it is the will of the Holy Spirit to 
teach us; in his pride and obstinacy he disregards the means 
given us by the Apostle for the proving of spirits, and in this he 
proves himself to be a heretic. All teachers of error have thus 
sought to examine by the letter of Scripture the truths proposed 
by the authorities of the Church to the belief of the faithful, 
while they have ever maintained that they were keeping strictly 
to the teaching contained in Scripture. In the same way the 
opponents of the Vatican Council desire to test the decrees of 
the Council, and to set themselves up as judges over the Church 
assembled in her office of teacher, and over her decisions ; and 
for this reason they are heretics, shut out from the pale of the 
Church. 

The heretics of the present day maintain, as did those of old, 
that the Church, whose chiefs they have condemned, is not the 
rightful Church. But whose judgment is this? It is the judg- 
ment of the heretics alone; they look upon themselves not as 
heretics but as the true Church. But since they have been con- 
demned in Council by the pastors of that Church, which before 
their time was esteemed by the whole world to be the true 
Church, and is still so esteemed by all men except themselves, 
it follows that if they persist in contradicting the Council they 
are heretics, precisely as were those who went before them.* 

The Emperor Marcian, at the Fourth General Council at 
Chalcedon,‘ said : ‘ Whosoever still inquires further, after truth 
has been found, is seeking after a lie.® He made a severe law, 
forbidding that any matter once decided and lawfully settled in 


Opponents of the Council Heretics. 125 





Council should be again made the subject of fresh investigations 
and disputes, and thus become a pretence for tumult or for stub- 
born unbelief. The opponents of the Vatican Council are pre- 
cisely in the position of those early heretics, the Monophysites, 
against whom this imperial law was passed. And when they 
reply, as did Chemnitz to the Council of Trent,® that ‘ only when 
a decision has been rightly established is further discussion for- 
bidden, and that the question is precisely whether the decision 
of the Council was rightly established,’ they make themselves and 
their party the judges of the Council, and refuse to believe the 
teaching Church, preferring their own opinion and judgment. But 
in former days was it the judgment of the Council or the judgment 
of Eutychus, Dioscorus, and heretics which was to determine 
whether the decisions at Chalcedon were rightly established, and 
whether consequently truth was attained, and the decision placed 
beyond discussion? Marcian’s law becomes utterly ridiculous 
unless it be admitted that the judgment of the Council was to 
be decisive. His intention was to forbid the disputations held 
by the teachers of heresy against the decision of the Council, in 
which they contended that the truth had not been attained nor 
a right decision determined upon. Accordingly he declared it 
to be impious, after the judgment of so many bishops, to rely 
still upon private opinion, and the height of folly, in full day- 
light, to desire another and an artificial light. In like manner, 
in the present day a question once determined by the Church 
in Council cannot be reéxamined by a small party of opponents 
in order to decide whether the definition has been rightfully 
mace. 

The new heretics behave towards the Vatican Council just 
as open Protestants, such as Chemnitz, and Protestants in dis- 
guise, such as Paul Sarpi, behaved towards the Council of Trent ; 
their descriptions of it are most alarming, and quite at the be- 
ginning they expressed their extreme fear lest it should meet 
with general recognition among Catholics, a result which they 
have been, however, wholly unable to hinder. 


1 Dollinger, in the Allgemeine Zeitung, March 31, 1871, and others, 
2 Cf. Aug. de Bapt.c. Donat. iii. 19; also the works, De Utilitate Cre- 


126 The Vatican Council. 





dendi and De Vera Religione ; also Tertull. De Praescript., and Irenaeus, 
Ady. Haer., who says (1. iii. c. xxiv. n. 1): ‘ Cujus (Sp. 8.) non sunt parti- 
cipes omnes qui non currunt ad Ecclesiam, sed semetipsos fraudant a vita 
per sententiam malam et operationem pessimam. Ubi enim Ecclesia, ibi 
et Spiritus Dei, et ubi Spiritus Dei, ibi Ecclesia et omnis gratia, Spiritus 
autem veritas.’ L.iv. c. xxvi. n. 2: ‘Qua propter eis qui in Ecclesia sunt 
presbyteris obaudire oportet, his qui successionem habent ab Apostolis.... 
qui cum episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secundum pla- 
citum Patris accesserunt, reliquos vero, qui absistunt a principali succes- 
sione et quocunque loco colligunt; suspectos habere vel quasi haereticos 
et malae sententiae .... omnes autem hi deciderunt a veritate.’ 

3 Cf. Athanas. Ep. ad Epictet. n. 1 (Migne, xxvi. 1052), on the oppo- 
sition to the Council of Nicaea. The Sorbonne declared in 1521 in the 
censure of Luther (Du Plessis, t. ii. p, i. p. iii.) : ‘ Nonne impium se prodit 
et infidelem, quisquis orthodoxae fidei, Ss. Ecclesiae Doctoribus ac sacris 
Conciliis credere dedignatur? Is nempe cui credit, qui Cath. Ecclesiae 
fidem habere detractat? Aut quomodo Catholicis adscribetur, qui Eccle- 
siam non audit, cum ex ore Veritatis dictum sit: Si Ecclesiam non audierit, 
sit tibi sicut ethnicus et publicanus? Porro ista est peculiaris haeretico- 
rum insania, ut Scriptura pro voto contorquentes sese eas solos credant in- 
telligere, solos se ad veritatem Evangelii putent ambulare, solos se et quos 
falsa religione seducunt, salutem consequi arbitrentur, nec cujuscunque 
Doctoris, quantumvis sancti et eruditi, sed nec ipsius Ecclesiae auctoritatem 
suscipere velint contra eam, quam semel sibi praefixerint, Scripturarum 
intelligentiam.’ 

4 L. iv. Nemo, i. 1, Cod. de 8. Trinit. 

5 Conc. Chale. act. vi. Mansi, vii. 170. 

6 Chemnitz, Examen. Concilii Trid. Praefat. i. part. 


ae 


Moreover, in their whole conduct they imitate the heretics of 
old. They have forgotten the words of St. Cyprian : ‘ Whoso- 
ever is not with his bishop is not in the Church ;? and like the 
Donatist Petilian, they express the bitterest hatred against the 
Roman See, the centre of Catholic unity, herein differing widely 
from the best among the Gallicans.? They adopt an utterly 
heretical principle, in that they interpret passages of Scripture 
according to their own private judgment, and employ them con- 
trary to the mind of the Church.? They act precisely like the 
Greek schismatics, who would have ‘no addition to the Gospel,’ 
although many such additions were made, and necessarily made, 
in the early General Councils, if only in the sense of interpreta- 
tion and more complete development (propositio explicita) of the 


Opponents of the Council Heretics. 127 





deposit of faith revealed from the beginning.® A wonderful 
likeness may be traced even in detail between the new heretics 
and those of old, especially the Arians. The followers of Arius 
opposed the doctrine that the Son of God is of the same nature 
with the Father, as not being contained in Scripture,® precisely 
as the infallibility of the Pope in his office of teacher is now op- 
posed as unknown in the Bible. As of old the ‘same nature’ 
of the Son (Homoousios), so now the ‘ infallible Pope’ is the dis- 
tinctive sign and mark of true Catholics. The Arians were ever 
holding fresh assemblies’ in opposition to the Council of Nicaea 
the object of their abuse,® but held in high honour by all the 
faithful of Christendom.® Precisely similar were the assemblies 
held in our own day at Nuremburg, Heidelberg, in the Crystal 
Palace at Munich, and in the hotel of the ‘ Great Greenfinch’ at 
Vienna. The Arians attracted even unbelievers to their services 
and pseudo-councils,!° and the meetings of our protesting Catho- 
lics are frequented by Freemasons of all sorts, by Protestants, 
schismatics, and Jews. St. Athanasius further declares, ‘They 
suffer women and boys to take part in theological disputations ;12 
they make poor jokes on holy subjects ;! they recommend dis- 
reputable persons if only they further their heresy ;!° they rest 
entirely on the civil power,!* before whom they calumniate the 
Catholics ;!© they contend exclusively with the Church, while 
with heretics they seek to be at peace ;}° they take less pains to 
establish their own doctrine than to vilify the doctrines of the 
Church ;!7 few in number, all the greater is the noise they make ;18 
inconstant and at variance amongst themselves, they often change 
their opinions,'® and appeal to ancient teachers, whose meaning 
they misrepresent.’2° Is not this the exact description of the 
new Protestants ? : 


1 Cyprian. Ep. 69, ad Florent. Pup. Cf. Ignat. Ep. ad Trall. c. i. 

2 Of. e.g. Dissert. Praevia Declar. Cleri Gallic. § 1, with the expressions 
of the pseudo-Catholics of to-day. 

3 Athan. Or. lc. Arian. n. 37, 52, pp. 348-360, ed. Maur. Basil. 
Ep. viii. c. iv. p. 83. Cyrill. Alex. Ep. ad Joh. Ant. Mansi, vi. 674. 

4 Schulte, iii. p. 2. 

* Audr. Rhod. in Conc. Flor. (Hard. ix. p. 72 seq.), Bessarion, and 
others. 


128 The Vatican Council. 





6 Athan. de Syn. n. 36, Ep. ad Afros. Ep. n. 6, p. 715. De Decret. 
Nic. Syn. n.1. Basil, Ep. 214, ad Terent. Com. ¢. ii. 
7 Athan. de Syn. n. 21, Ep. ad Afr. Episc. n. 10, 586, 718, ed. 


Maurin. 

8 Athan. de Decret. Nic. Syn. n. 18, 

® Athan. Ep. ad Jovin. n. 2. 

10 Athan. Vita S. Antonii, n. 82, p. 686. 

Nn Athan. Or. lc. Ar. n. 1, 22, pp. 319-336 seq.; Or. ii. n. 18, p. 384. 

12 Athan. Or. l.c. Ar. n. 7, p. 323. 

13 Athan. Hist. Ar. ad Monach. n. 2, p. 273. 

14 Athan. l.c. n. 33, 34, p. 287; Or. ii. c. Ar. n. 43, p. 404. 

15 Td, Hist. Ar. n. 65, p. 302. 

16 Athan. Hist. Ar. n. 31, 32, p. 286. 

17 Basil. Ep. 214, ad Terent. c. ii.: ofs ula perétn eorlv ev rots em rijs 
exkAncias Adyos ob TA EavTav mapackevdfew, AAAG TA TucTepa SiaBddrew, 

18 Athan. Ep. ad Episc. Alg, et Lib. n. 7, p. 218. 

19 Athan. Or. ii.c. Ar. n. 40, p. 401. 

20 Athan. de Sent. Dionys. n. 1 seq. p. 191 seq. 


§ 4. 

Again, the new Protestants take exactly the same ground as 
the Donatists, who sought the true Church in their own land 
alone, that is, in Africa ;! for they acknowledge the Church in 
Germany alone, and amongst the few foreign followers of the 
German professors, such as Loyson and Michaud. But is this 
small sect, which is almost wholly confined to one country, and 
which even there counts comparatively few followers, is this in- 
deed the Church Catholic, which according to the judgment of 
the Fathers is known by this very mark—that she is spread over 
the face of the earth, that she exists where sects also exist, while 
they are not to be found in many places where she is? The so- 
called Old Catholics may be answered to-day in the words ad- 
dressed by Peter the Venerable to one of the Cardinals of the 
anti-Pope :? ‘Either the Church, the sheepfold of Christ, in 
which are the sheep of the True Shepherd, is with us, in which 
case your sheepfold contains no sheep but only goats, whose 
place is on the left hand ; or it is with you, and in this case the 
word of the Father is false in which He promised the Son, ‘ I will 
give Thee the Gentiles for Thine inheritance, and the utmost 
parts of the earth for Thy possession” (Ps. ii. 8) ;* false is the 
voice of the prophet, “He shall rule from sea to sea, and from 


Opponents of the Council Fleretics. 129 





the river unto the ends of the earth” (Ps. xxi. 8); false like- 
wise are the words, “ All the peoples which Thou hast made shall 
come and worship before Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name.’ 
All this is false if the inheritance and possession of Christ has 
indeed become so small that He now possesses only the towers 
of Pier Leone and the few smal] fortresses of the Count of Poitiers,’ 
Déllinger indeed wrote,® ‘Thousands amongst the clergy, hun- 
dreds of thousands amongst the laity, think as I do, and hold it 
impossible to accept the new article of faith ; but his pretended 
knowledge of men’s hearts has come to shame. A few professors 
puffed up with learning ; a few priests, many of whom were be- 
fore not living the lives of priests ; some men of culture so called, 
who, for the most part, had never been rightly instructed in the 
faith, or who had long ago thrown it overboard,—such in the 
main are the new heretics who have nominally been at such 
pains to guard the purity of the faith. Pastors without flocks, 
liberal magistrates, long non-practising Catholics, form now the 
stronghold of ‘Old Catholicism, and this little group presumes 
to call itself the true Old Catholic Church, and to designate the 
immense majority of Catholics, the Pope, and the united Epis- 
copate as apostates ! 

1 Aug. de Unit. Eccl. c. xvi. 

2 Cyrill. Hieros. Catech. xviii. n. 23. Vincent. Lerin. Commonit. c. iii. 
Optat.l.c. Theodoret, Haer. Fab. 1. iii. c. vi. p. 347 seq. Aug. de Unit. 
Eccl. c. ii.: ‘ Ilae quippe (sectae) in multis gentibus, ubi ista (Catholica) 
est, non inveniuntur, haec autem, quae ubique est, etiam ubi illae sunt, 
invenitur.’ 

3 Petrus Ven. 1. ii. Ep. 4, pp. 192, 193. 

4 On this text St. Augustine (De Unit. Eccl. ¢. viii. n. 20) says: ‘ Quis 
enim Christianus unquam dubitavit, hoc de Christo esse praedictum, aut 
hanc haereditatem aliud quam Ecclesiam esse intellexit?’ Cf. Optat.c. 
Parmen. ii. 1. ; 

5 St. Augustine especially urges this against the Donatists—Brevicul. 
Collat. die iii. in Psalm lxxxi. 121, de Unit Eccl. c.ii. 25. He also says: 
‘Hoc ideo dicendum putavi, ut cognoscat eruditio vestra, periculosissime 
vos opinionem vestram totius mundi sententiae praeponere magisque 
superbae obstinationi paucorum, quam deyotae unanimitati multorum 
acquiescere.’ 

6 Declaration of March 28, 1871. 


VOL. I, K 


130 The Vatican Council. 





§ 5. 

The history of the Church teaches that almost all heretics 
carried on their rebellion against her under the pretext that the 
ecclesiastical authorities had changed and transformed the Church 
of Christ, whether in doctrine or in constitution. Long ago, 
the ancient Gnostics declared that the Apostles had given the 
Gospel a Jewish interpretation, and they, wiser and more honest 
than the Apostles, desired to restore it according to the mind of 
Christ.1_ The Artemonites maintained, that since the time of 
Pope Zephyrinus (a.D. 202-218) truth had been corrupted in the 
Church.2 The Macedonians in the fourth century pronounced 
the doctrine of the divinity of the Holy Ghost to be contrary to 
Scripture, and unknown in the primitive Church. The Nes- 
torians rejected the Third General Council (431) as incompatible 
with the first of Nicea; while the Monophysites rejected the 
Council of Chalcedon (451) as contradicting that of Ephesus 
and the teaching of St. Cyril.4 The Paulicians, who claimed for 
‘ themselves the name of the ‘ Catholic Church,’ cast off at once 
the constitution and doctrines of the Church. The same course 
was followed by the schismatic Greeks and the medieval sects ; 
and they rejected the Roman Church, as having fallen away 
from truth.® 

But it is objected by some : ‘ According to the Fathers, the 
true faith may at least for a time be lost to the larger part of 
the Church, and an example of this is to be found in the history 
of Arianism.’ But who may the Fathers be who speak thus ? 
The Fathers declare the precise contrary. There is not asingle 
one who says that the teaching Church can, even for a short 
time, fall into error; they all teach, with one voice, that the 
faith is the very being of the Church ; that she is imperishable 
and incapable oferror. ‘The Bride of Christ,’ says St. Cyprian,’ 
‘can never be an adulteress; and the promise of Christ (St. 
Matt. xxviii. 20) extends to all days, even to the end of the 
world” St. Jerome, indeed, on the occasion of the Council of 
Rimini, exclaimed : ‘The whole world wondered to find itself 
Arian;’* but the words ‘ miratus est’ (wondered) show clearly that 


Opponents of the Council Fleretics. 131 





the outward appearance did not correspond with the actual 
reality ; had Arian doctrines preponderated amongst Christians, 
the world could not have wondered to find itself Arian.? In 
truth, the Arians did not exceed the Christians in number ; 
and only by the tyranny of Constantius (and later by that of 
Valens) was Arianism raised to the power, which it lost again 
as soon as the imperial protection was withdrawn. Many bishops 
bowed before it from compulsion and fear, as was proved at 
Rimini; even under Arian bishops the people often remained 
Catholic, which made St. Hilarius say that the ears of the people 
were more holy than the hearts of the priests ;!° they often 
understood the doctrine taught them in a Catholic sense. In 
the East, the whole people frequently fled to the desert, for- 
saking the Arian churches, and worshipping God amidst the 
greatest hardships, and under the open sky.!! There was no lack, 
either in the East or in the West, of distinguished and resolute de- 
fenders of Catholic doctrine. The Council of Rimini gave merely 
an apparent and momentary success to the false doctrine ; for in 
truth those bishops who had suffered their signature to be ex- 
torted from them by threats or by force remained in heart 
Catholic.!2 The court theology of Constantius perished utterly ; 
the theology of the Church, even without the ‘ patronising in- 
terference of the State,’ proceeds ever on its peaceful way. 


1 Tren, Adv. Haer. 1. iii. c, xii. n. 12. 

2 Eus. H. E. v. 28, ex Auct. Anon.: ard 5 tod d:addx0u abtod (Tov 
Bixropos) Zedupivov mapakexapdxOar Thy adhOeray. 

3 Naz. Or. xxxi.s.v. Theol. n. 21, p. 569. Leont. Byzant. de Sectis, 
act. iv. (Migne, Ixxxvi. 1220). 

* Leontius, l.c. act. vi. n. 3, 4; act. viii. n. 2 (pp. 1236-1252). 

5 Phot. c. Manich. i. 9. 

6 Everin of Steinfelden to St. Bead (Du Plessis, 1. i. p. 23): ‘ Di- 
cunt apud se tantum Ecclesiam esse, eo quod ipsi soli vestigiis Christi 
inhaereant,’ &c. Ekbert of Sch6nau, serm. ii. c. Cath. (ib. p. 45). Ramerius 
(ib. p. 56. Cf. p. 93). Theodor. Balsam. Resp. ad Marc. q. 15 (Leuencl. 
i. p. 370). Meditat. de Convocat. (ib. pp. 477, 478). 

7 De Unit. Eccl. c. vi. 

§ Hier. Dial. adv. Lucifer. The matter is treated in detail by Tho- 
massin (Diss. Vin. Syn. Arim. § 1, p. 109 seq.), because, as he says, 
with this passage velut ariete novatores Ecclesiae toto orbe diffusae 
universitatem solent impetere. 


132 The Vatican Council. 





® Thomassin, l.c. § 4, p. 111: ‘ Nempe id novum, id praeter mentem 
et voluntatem suam esset, imo quod impossibile esset et tamen ita specie 
tenus esse videretur.’ 


10 Hilar. c. Auxent. Liber. n. 6.' 
1! Basil. Ep. 92, al. 69, c. ii. p. 481. 
12 Thomassin, l.c, p. 113, seq. § 8. 


§ 6, 

The new sect deserves in justice the name of new Protest- 
antism and new Jansenism. The teachers of false doctrine 
have ever borrowed weapons from the arsenals of ancient 
heretics, derived expressions from their writings, and sent them 
forth as something new ;! and in like manner the German Janus 
party has borrowed its ideas and words chiefly from Protest- 
antism and Jansenism. Protestantism took the pretended 
corruption of the Church as a pretext for separation ; while 
Jansenism took as its pretext the darkness said to have lasted 
many hundred years. No wonder, therefore, that the new sect © 
should even outwardly connect itself with the remnant of the 
old Jansenists. There is in the writings and conduct of the 
Jansenists and the Dollingerites a harmony which extends even 
to the smallest details. 

The opposition raised against the definition when made, 
July 18, 1870, is precisely the same as that raised in France in 
1713, against the Bull ‘Unigenitus.’ Both heresies fought against 
the definition of the Church as being dangerous to the State, 
and both appealed against it to the power of the State ; both 
allied themselves with any powerful party which would make 
common cause with them against the Church ; both attacked in 
particular the Society of the Jesuits, who had served the Church 
so well ; both made use of the same means, odious imputations 
and suspicions against Rome. Here again are the same appella- 
tions, the same defenders of ‘ pure theology,’ the same: lamenta- 
tions over the tyranny of bishops, the persecution of ‘ orthodox’ 
priests, and the refusal of the longed-for sacraments to ‘ orthodox’ 
laymen; then come complaints of want of clearness in the 
definition, and of its suspicious origin.? Now, as then, the ques- 
tion of right is separated from the question of fact. The ‘ Old 


Opponents of the Council Fleretzcs. £32 





Catholics’ would not for the world set themselves against a 
Council which is in truth general; but they contend that the 
Vatican Council was not truly general. They cannot perceive 
the dogma defined to be well founded and true ; and therefore 
they oppose the Council which detined it. Again, they hesitate 
to acknowledge the Council as in truth ecumenical and lawful ; 
and therefore they hold themselves to be freed from the believ- 
ing submission to its decrees, which else they must acknow-. 
ledge as due to the mysteries of faith, to those sublime truths 
which are far above human reason.? But this alone is sufficing 
proof that, whatever they may be, they are not Catholics. 

Further, every Catholic has always been bound to believe, 
that the Church must be, now and ever, in her essence unchange- 
able, imperishable, and infallible; should she ever cease to 
possess these attributes, then she never was at any time the true 
Church. But the new Protestants have altogether lost the con- 
ception of the infallibility of the Church. 

Moreover, a Catholic is bound to hold firmly, that a real 
contradiction between the teaching of the Church and science is 
not possible, and that there can be merely a seeming contradic- 
- tion; if, therefore, he feel himself repelled by a definition of 
the Church, and find it hard for his reason to master, the error 
is to be sought on his side, and not on that of the Church. So 
said Dollinger as late as 1863.4 No Catholic can or ever could 
say, as did a member of the Munich Congress (1871), that he 
was so deeply impressed with the truth of his own conviction, 
although rejected by the Pope and bishops, that even were he 
the only mortal man who adhered to this principle, he would 
never profess any other. This is, and always has been, the stub- 
born and unjustifiable pride peculiar to heretics,® which leads 
them to take their own judgment as their sole standard, and 
makes it certain that they will lose themselves in endless in- | 
consistencies and contradictions.® 


1 Abbot Wibald writes (Ep. 147, p. 1250): ‘Illi ipsi qui ob ignominio- 
sam gloriam haeretici contendunt fieri, non nova inveniunt, sed vetera 
replicant, et superfluas verborum novitates, quas Apostolus devitandas 


134 The Vatican Counczl. 





praccipit, quae multorum sunt correctione antiquatae, tamquam propria 
ratiocinatione inventas in contentionem adducunt.’ 

2 Cf. these expressions with the Remonstrance du Parlement au Roi 
du 9 Avril 1753, e.g. ‘Que ces voyes d’autorité si éloignées de l’esprit de 
la religion n'ont jamais été plus multipliées 4 son préjadice, qu’au sujet 
de la Bulle Unigenitus..... C’est par la violence, que l’on soumet les 
fidéles 4 la Bulle Unigenitus..... Quelle indétermination! Peut-elle se 
concilier jamais avec l’idée d’un jugement dogmatique, d’un jugement 
irr¢formable de l’Eglise universelle ?’ (p. 182.) ‘Combien de curés fidéles 4 
leurs devoirs n’ont été enlevés A leurs paroisses par des ordres, que le faux 
zele de quelques évéques est parvenu A surprendre 4 votre Majesté!.... 
Quel spectacle affligeant pour la religion!’ &c. Details on this subject in 
M. Gerbert, Op. cit. 1. iii. ¢. vii. n. 13-15, pp. 535-544. 

3 The Faculty of Douay, in the Declaration of 1704, art. vi. § 4 (Du 
Plessis, t. iii. p. ii. pp. 436, 437), says: ‘N. 3. L’infaillibilité de l’Eglise 
n’est pas fondée sur l’évidence de ce qu’elle propose, mais sur l’assistance 
du St. Esprit, et par consequent il ne faut pas rechercher l’évidence de 
Vobjet pour lui soumettre son esprit. N. 4, Si Vinfaillibilité de l’Kglise 
n’était fondée que sur l’évidence du fait, elle n’aurait en cela pas plus 
d’avantage que le dernier des hommes, qui ne peut aussi se tromper sur 
ce qui est évident. 10. Reconnaitre un fait, parcequ’il est évident, n’est 
pas se soumettre 4 l’Eglise, mais 4 une nécessité naturelle, qui entraine 
Vesprit du coté de l’évidence.’ 

4 Munich, Guat eee eelaea 1863, Verhandlungen, p. 56. Cf. 
Cone. Later. v. et Pius IX. ap. Denzinger, Enchir. p. 219, n. 621; 
pp. 444-451, n. 1498, 1508. Const. Vat. Dei Filius, cap. iv. 

5 The words of St. Augustine apply here (c. Crescon. iii. 3), on the 
false view of heretical baptism taken by the early African bishops: ‘ Sicut 
landabile est a vera sententia non amoveri, ita culpabile est persistere in 
falsa.’ 

§ Cf. Tertull. de Praescr, c. xl. xli. 


7 


Again, the new heresy has another point in common with 
those gone before it. Logic and consistency have never been 
characteristics of heresy ; on the contrary, it is inseparable from 
glaring inconsistencies and contradictions ; and this feature is to 
be seen again among the new Protestants, or so-called Old Catho- 
lics. On the one hand, they no longer acknowledge the ‘ infal- 
libilistic clergy’ as eine Catholic and lawful ; on the other, they 
demand from them for their members eeletasical employ- 
ment, and to be allowed to exercise the functions of parish 
priests. They reject an episcopate submissive to the fatal July 
decrees, but still they make appeal to a higher court of the same 


Opponents of the Council Heretics. 136 





episcopate, thereby acknowledging its jurisdiction ; they seek 
to bind the Pope byancient canons, from which they free them- 
selves. The ancient law of the Church, that no priest may 
exercise ecclesiastical functions beyond his own diocese, unless 
by permission of the bishop, they have with sovereign power set 
aside. The Jansenist Archb‘shop of Utrecht, without scruple, 
exercised his episcopal powers in Bavaria as universal bishop. 
The parish duties discharged by the priests of the new sect should 
be considered precisely in the same light as though discharged 
by priests who have no parochial rights, and in places where 
such had never been granted to them.} 

The ‘ Old Catholics’ either are or are not excluded from the 
Catholic Church ; they either do or do not regard the power of 
the State as forming a part of the Catholic Church. In the 
former case, as the Austrian Minister of Worship expressed it 
(Feb. 20, 1872), they must ‘consider as lawfully entitled to 
perform the pastoral functions of the religious denomination 
acknowledged by law those priests alone who, by the existing 
laws'and the agreements between Church and State, are known 
to be the regular pastors of the denomination ; and hence they 

cannot consider as valid the civil register brought in by the 
‘Old Catholic’ clergy, who had no former rights in the parish ; 
nor can they consider the marriages solemnised before them as 
binding. In the latter case they must take their stand on the 
laws existing for dissenters and other sects, unless they should 
join some recognised Protestant denomination. Moreover, the 
‘Old Catholics’ vary much in their demands; some insist on a 
Church, as of right belonging to them ; others need none, look- 
ing upon the whole world as their Church; some desire par. 
ishes of their own, properly organised ; others perceive this to 
be ‘a fatal course, beset with snares at every step 7? some say 
the infallibilist bishops and priests still form part of the Church, 
and are ‘the rightful holders of Church authority ;’3 others con- 
sider them as wholly cut off from the Catholic Church, and as 
constituting an heretical Church ; some have perceived that the 
State ‘will never, in order to please a few dissenters, deprive of 
her rights and titles that Church which in the eyes of the whole 


136 The Vatican Council. 





world has an unbroken succession, and the possession of an 
enormous majority of members and parishes, that Church with 
which the State long ago entered into close alliance ;* others, 
on the contrary, have held this to be possible, and have straight- 
way demanded that the Catholic foundations should be handed 
over to them as the rightful Church. On the one side they de- 
clare, ‘We accept everything which was received in the Catholic 
Church up to July 18, 1870;’ and on the other, ‘ We oppose 
not a single dogma alone, but the whole spirit by which for 
centuries Rome has been animated.’ 

Thus are the new Protestants at variance amongst them- 
selves, and exhibit that distinctive mark of heresy, disunion ; 
whilst at the very time of the Vatican definition the unity of 
the Catholic Church was once again most strikingly shown. In 
the last century Martin Gerbert wrote: ‘What schism could 
be more terrible than that imagined by those who believe it 
possible for the bishops in Council to differ from the faith of 
the Roman Church? But they will ever agree in the same 
sentence, though differences of opinion may from time to time 
arise in discussion: for neither to the Pope nor to the bishops 
is a sudden inspiration given, but the determination to which 
they come after deliberation is, by the assistance of the Holy 
Ghost, firm and inviolable.’ The head will never be divided 
from the members; and thus we see the entire unity of the 
episcopate with the head of the Universal Church, while those 
who set themselves against the Vatican Council have fallen 
under the excommunication pronounced by it, and have ceased 
to be Catholics. 


1 Vide Der Conflict zwischen Kirche und Staat in Bayern, p. 86 seq. 
93 seq. 

* Dollinger, Munich Speech, 1871, Report, p. 108. 

3 Dollinger, l.c. 109. 

4 Dollinger, ibid. 129, 130. 


Charges against the Council. New 





Part II, CHARGES AGAINST THE COUNCIL. 


§ 1. Pretended want of freedom of the Council. § 2. Letters on the 
Council and Friedrich’s Journal. § 3. Pressure by the Pope and the 
Curia. § 4, Right of proposal. § 5. Right of definition. § 6. Order 
of business. § 7. Lay diplomacy. § 8. Charges against the bishops 
of the majority. §9. Composition of the Council. § 10. Principle of 
majority. § 11. Representation and consent of individual Churches. 
§ 12. ‘ Theologians’ and public opinion. 


§ 1. 

What do our able opponents bring forward? First, they 
show great fear lest the acknowledgment of the Vatican Council 
should bring with it the downfall of the modern State, of the 
German empire, and, in general, of civilisation and true reli- 
gion. Another, on the contrary, writes: ‘ Whoever has cour- 
age to look calmly in the face the simply horrible caricature 
presented to us by the Vatican Council will at once lose all 
fear of its power and vitality.’ Wherefore, then, is so much 
pains taken to oppose that which is in itself ‘ powerless and in- 
capable of life’? Hase (a Protestant) is right in saying: ‘ Had 
the dogma been withdrawn, or had it been rejected by the ma- 
jority, the opposition would never have thought of calling in 
question the ecumenical character of the Council.’3_ The Council 
is not rejected on formal and juridical grounds, but only by 
reason of the dogma itself. 

What, then, is the formal deficiency with which the Council 
is reproached? The answer is: Above all, the notorious want 
of freedom of the bishops.* The same reproach was once cast 
on the Council of Trent, but was refuted on all sides.5 In 
order to prove the want of freedom of the Vatican Council, it 
would be needful to produce witnesses or documents, and more- 
over unexceptionable witnesses and documents above suspicion. 
Up to the present day no one has been able to do this.6 Is, 
perchance, a French pamphlet, the author of which dares not 
even come forward with his name, and the contents of which 
have been branded as calumnious and lying by five hundred 
bishops,’ to be reckoned as proof? Or the expressions of Lord 


138 The Vatican Council. 





Acton,’ too famous for his activity against the Council? Do 
the voices of the opposing minority alone carry weight, and not 
those of the majority, who, be it remembered, would always 
have formed a majority, even without the subsequent addition 
of those who were at first, from various causes, amongst the op- 
positionists? Do the assurances of all the bishops speaking 
with one voice—of those who were never troubled, and of those 
who for a short time saw cause for anxiety—do all these go for 
nothing? 

The freedom essential to the Council is freedom of speech 
and of vote. This was fully granted, as even the antagonistic 
accounts prove without meaning to do so, when they report the 
more than frank expressions of the oppositionists.9 If, on July 
18, 1870, two bishops (who, however, on the subsequent defi- 
nition immediately submitted to it) were able to give a nega- 
tive vote, ‘ Non placet,’ it surely would have been as easy, or 
even easier, for twenty or a hundred to have done the same. 

Once only, on June 3, was the closing of the debate deter- 
mined, and then it was on the motion of more than one hundred 
and fifty of the Fathers, and was carried by an overwhelming 
majority, in which were numbered many even of the ‘ opposi- 
tion ; and this was done after the hearing of sixty-three speakers 
in fourteen debates, and with the reservation of the special de- 
bate, which lasted over four more weeks, and gave many more 
speakers an opportunity for a free expression of opinion. In 
truth at no time and in no place has there been such perfect 
freedom in a like assembly, nor so many occasions given for dis- 
cussion.!0 

1 Vide Dollinger, Allgemeine Zeitung, March 31, 1871, and others. 

2 Berchtold, p. 9. 

3 Hase, Handbuch der Prot. Polemik, p. 198. 

4 Dollinger, ibid. and others. 

5 Pallavic, Hist. Conc. Trid. 1. xxiv. c. xiv. 

6 Cf. Ueber das Vatican. Concil. Mainz, 1871, ii. pp. 6-12. Schulte’s 
publication, Das Unfehlbarkeits-decret. v. 18 Juli 1870, auf Seine 
Kirchliche Verbindlichkeit Gepriift (Prag, 1870), was shown in its true 
colours, by Bishop Fessler, in Das Vaticanische Concilium, dessen Aus- 


sere Bedeutung und Innerer Verlauf (Vienna, 1871). 
7 Cf. the Ratisbon Pastoral of Oct. 28, 1870, § 11. 


Charges against the Council. ~ 139 





8 Cf. Frhrn. v. Ketteler, Die Minoritit auf dem Concil. Antwort auf 
Lord Acton’s Sendschreiben, Mainz, 1870. Archiv fiir Kath. Kirchenrechte, 
1870, vol. xxv. p. cliii. seq. . 

9 Histor. Polit. Blitter, vol. lxvi. p. 198 seq. Ueber das Vat. Concil. 
pp. 9, 10. 

10 Ratisbon Pastoral, Oct. 28, 1870, § 12, p. 46. 


§ 2. 

On what, then, is founded the calumny that the Council was 
notoriously wanting in freedom? On the letters on the Council 
in the Allgemeine Zeitung, and on the Journal (Tagebuch) of 
the Roman Council by Friedrich. These are the two sources, 
and they form in reality but one, as may be seen by any person 
who takes the trouble to compare the two. They echo each 
other and are composed of mere pitiful gossip, often repeated 
at second and third hand,! most shameful expressions being 
put into the mouths of anonymous witnesses, described as pre- 
lates, theologians, diplomatists, laymen, &c.2 The Journal, 
moreover, indulges in insulting expressions about the highest 
dignitaries in the Church, such as can only have been dictated 
by the bitterest hatred. But enough has been said of this 
book, which is highly praised by its party as ‘an historical 
work.’ 


1 Petrus Vener. 1. ii. Ep. 33, p. 252: ‘ Habent vina hunc morem, ut 
de vase in vas frequenter transfusa a virtute naturali languescant; si re- 
centia hauriantur, vini saporem integre servasse probentur. Sic verba per 
aures alienas aliorum cordibus committenda referentium inscitia, incuria, 
industria aut non intellectam aut neglectam aut depravatam quandoque 
augent, mutant, minuunt veritatem.’ 

2 Many of the statements made are simply ridiculous. The Fosfori 
Infallibili (matches which never fail to strike) were not hawked about for 
the first time of late (Journal, p. 177), but many years ago. In one of 
the most important Basilicas, the Credo and Agnus Dei were to be sung 
on Holy Saturday (p. 331), while on this day both are omitted. Concern- 
ing the Roman Inquisition, he learns that it still believes that ‘ horses are 
made to prick up their ears by the holy souls ; therefore the owners of these 
horses are to have chapels built to the holy souls on the spot.’ He speaks 
in Latin with a chaplain; the auditors, especially the ladies, were never- 
theless on his side (p. 329), &c. 

’ The bishops are flatterers (p. 51), perfidious (p. 137), ignorant 
(p. 244). He perceived as early as January 2, 1870, that the Council was 
to be a Synod of flatterers and thieves, ‘which we theologians’ (p. 251) 
could not acknowledge. 


140 The Vatian Council. 





§ 3. 

‘But,’ it is objected, ‘the power of the Pope and of the 
Curia was contrary to all freedom on the part of the bishops.’ 
What, then, was to be done? Were the bishops to be released 
from their oath of obedience to the Pope? Was the Pope, out 
of favour to the episcopal privileges, defended by a small 
number of learned men in Germany, to renounce rights founded 
on history and canon law? Was the disorder which prevailed 
at Basle to be again regarded as order? Surely the mere sub- 
ordination of the bishops to the Pope does not destroy their 
liberty! Members of Parliament do not lose their freedom by 
taking an oath of obedience to the head of the State ; and the 
oath of obedience taken by the bishops does not bind them to 
give a vote contrary to judgment and conscience.! The Coun- 
cil is not indeed a sovereign national assembly, with the Pope 
on the other side as president and chief of the executive power ; 
the reason being, that neither the assembled bishops nor the 
Pope lose the rights and spiritual powers given to them by 
Christ.2 As the bishops individually are all subordinate to the 
Pope, so when collected together they are not loosed from this 
subordination.® 

1 Raynald. a. 1560, n. 60; a. 1561, n. 6. 

2 Bossuet, Def. p. iii. 1. vii. c. iv. t. xi. p.9 : ‘Quum profecto Concilium 
nihil aliud sit, quam Cath. Ecclesiae repraesentatio, integris omnibus, 
quae cuique a Christo sunt, dotibus, non profecto sublatis, ne non reprae- 


sentatio, sed exstinctio ecclesiasticae unitatis esse videatur.’ 
3 Cf. Bouix, De Papa, t. ii. p. 220. 


§ 4. 

In every large assembly the right of presiding is so far bound 
up with the right of proposing questions, that the president has 
to decide the order of succession amongst the subjects to be con- 
sidered. But now our opponents deny to the Pope the right of 
proposing as well as the right of defining, and they make appeal 
in the first place to the Council of Trent. Every member of the 
Vatican Council, as of the Council of Trent, had the right of 
making proposals on the subjects under discussion; but, on the 


Charges against the Council. 14! 





other hand, in this as in the preceding Council, except by the 
presiding cardinals, no new subject could be proposed for dis- 
cussion and vote. This rule was in fact maintained at Trent,! 
and the Fathers did not thereby lose their needful freedom, but 
confusion and disorder were avoided.? The Papal legates at 
Trent wrote at the time to the Emperor Ferdinand: ‘ Were 
each member suffered to make proposals at will the Council 
would never end; if the Spaniards exercise this right, so will 
the French, the Germans, &c. We have more than once told 
the Fathers that in case they desire a proposal made, they can lay 
it before the legates; and this has, as a rule, been done’? In 
the Councils of the Middle Ages the Papal right of proposition 
passed unquestioned. The first Councils lawfully held in the 
East cannot be taken as affording a permanent rule, for at that 
time the emperor’s extensive office of protector of the Church 
gave to the imperial commissioners the external direction of 
affairs, and, as a consequence, considerable influence. Asarule, 
however, they were considered as distinct from the Council; ¢thus 
the letter of the Fathers of Chalcedon to Leo the Great distin- 
guishes the Papal power of presiding as that of the head over 
the members, and the power of the emperor as an honorary pre- 
sidentship.® In conducting the business of the Council, the 
Papal legates took the initiative from the imperial commission- 
ers, but they also afterwards conducted it with them, often in a 
most striking way, as is especially proved by the proceedings of 
the Fourth’ and Eighth’ General Councils. The fact that St. Cyril 
was Papal legate at Ephesus in 431 is disputed without reason, 
the very acts of the Council designating him as such.8 Theo- 
dosius II. (431) forbade the imperial commissioners sent thither, 
to take part in the ecclesiastical inquiries and conferences,?® 
From the fact that a Council which originally was not ecu- 
menical may receive the ecumenical character from the Pope 
taking part in it, nothing follows as to the right of proposition 
in Ecumenical Councils; if a Council be convoked and held as 
ecumenical, still the right of proposition belongs to the Pope. 
It cannot be taken as proof to the contrary that at Chalcedon 
the 28th canon was unlawfully brought in and accepted by the 


142 The Vatican Council. 





bishops who were servile to the court of Byzantium ; for the 
Pope as well as the legates protested against it, and the Orient- 
als until Jong after only reckoned twenty-seven canons of Chal- 
cedon,!° In later times, the ambition of the Byzantine court 
once more brought forward the canon rejected by Rome, much 
as the Gallicans have once more brought forward the Declaration 
of 1682, annulled by Louis XIV. in 1693.4 

The condemnation of Honorius at the Sixth Council, before 
the Roman legates were prepared for it, was the result of pressure 
on the part of the Greeks ; his guilt consisted, as Pope Leo II, 
plainly declared, in negligence, by means of which heresy was 
strengthened. It must not be concluded that because the Ro- 
man legates did not oppose proposals originating on the other 
side, that they therefore conceded to it the right of proposition. 
Neither does it follow from the conduct of the legates that it 
must have been forthwith, and to its full extent, approved 
and ratified by the Pope. Often the legates were disavowed 
by the Pope, and blamed and punished for overstepping their 
powers. 


' Bennettis, Privil. 8. Petri, p. i. t. i. p. 514. 

2 Pallav. Hist. Conc. Trid. 1. xxiii. ¢. xii. n.7. Massarelli’s remarks 
are made expressly of the general congregations, to which alone they can 
apply, since that which had been determined in them was only made 
public in the solemn sessions: ‘ Nemini enim licet nisi solis Praesidentibus 
proponere.’ This last word, as Fessler observes (Das Vatic. Concil. p. 34, 
n. *), may mean: (1) to propose motions on subjects fixed for discussion ; 
(2) to propose subjects for discussion and vote. The first, in the Vatican 
Council as in that of Trent, was the right of all members ; the last, in both 
cases, was the right of the presiding Cardinals alone. 

3 Raynald. a. 1563, n. 32. 

* Hefele, Cone. i. pp. 25-33. 

5 Leo, Ep. 98, c. i.: ‘Quibus tu quidem, sicut membris caput, prae- 
eras (Ss Kepud? meAGy 7yyeudveves) in his qui tuum tenebant ordinem.... 
Imperatores vero fideles ad ornandum decentissime praesidebant (mpds 
evkooulay ettipxov), ut Zorobabel Jesu.’ The allusion to 1 Esdr. iii. 2 
shows the codperation’ of the two powers for the restoration of religion. 
Cf. L. Thomassin, Dissert. x. in Syn. Eph. i. § 14, p. 198, ed. Colon. 
1784, seq. 

6 Cf. De Marca, de Cone. 1. v. c. vi. Leo. M.—Ep. 93, ad Syn.; Ep. 
89, ad Mare. (Jaffré, n. 253, 247) — preserved completely all the rights 
of his See, 

7 Mansi, xvi. 25 seq. 33 seq.; p. 316 seq. 


Charges against the Council. 143 





8 The force of the words of Celestine, Ep. 17 (Jaffré, n. 160), written 
to the legates appointed to Ephesus, is overlooked: ‘Ad fratrem et co- 
episcopum nostrum Cyrillum consilium vestrum omne convertite, et quid 
quid in ejus videritis arbitrio, facietis. Et auctoritatem Sedis Apostolicae 
custodiri debere mandamus; ad discrepationem si fuerit ventum, vos de 
eorum sententiis judicare debetis non subire certamen.’ 

9 Mansi, iv. 1119. 

10 Dionysius Exiguus reckons this number only; also Theodorus Lector 
(l. iv. p. 168, ed. Migne), Johan. Scholasticus, Eclogae Hist. by Cramer, 
Anecd. Paris, ii. p. 101, and elsewhere. Ballerini, in Diss. i.; Quesnell, 
a. 451, n. 14, p. 869. This is treated in detail in Photius, vol. i. pp. 
76-89. 

1 The letter to Innocent XII. of Sept. 14, 1693, is given by Du Ples- 
sis, t. iii. Append. p. 5, strictly according to the Vatican Archives, Theiner, 
Hist. de Clément XIV. vol. i. pp. 332, 333. 


§ 5. 


The opinion that the Popes, with respect to the right of de- 
finition, were in no way superior to other bishops, has been long 
ago set aside by theologians, and in particular by the Gallicans.? 
The fourth Gallican article of the Declaration of 1682 gives to 
the Pope, in the decision of questions of faith, the ‘ principal 
share’ (praecipuas partes). It has ever been acknowledged in 
the Church that a Council without the Pope cannot be a General 
Council. Whether the Pope defines with the ‘ approbation of 
the holy Council’ (sacro approbante Concilio), as has been the 
case in all Councils in which the Pope was present in person, 
or whether the Council speaks in its own name, and the con- 
firmation of the Pope is added,? is in essence the same; but 
Catholic theologians have ever recognised the participation or 
confirmation of the Pope to be essential to an Ecumenical Coun- 
cil. This one historical fact is unassailable, and is enough to 
prove the Pope’s right of definition: no Council, however nu- 
merous, has ever obtained universal recognition if rejected by 
the Roman See, and only those acknowledged by Rome have 
been acknowledged also by the whole Church. 


1 Thomassin, Dissert. xii. in Conc. Chale. § 1 seq. p. 248 seq. The 
Sorbonne in 1605 condemned the sentence: ‘Le Pape comme Pape n’a 
plus de puissance qu’un autre en ce qui est de la substance et des articles 
de la foi et qui n’est point déterminé, si ce n'est qu'il lui soit révélé par 
exprés’ (Du Plessis, t. ii. p. i. p.542). Febronius himself (De Statu Eccl. 


144 The Vatican Council. 





c. vi. § 4, n. 3) says: ‘Hi (Papae) competit jus relationis seu primae sen- 
tentiae, ita ut ipsius sit referre ad Patres, quid de re censendum sit, et 
primam ferre sententiam, quae definitionis vim habet, si Patrum sententiis 


firmetur.’ 

2 At Constance both forms were used; the first after the election of 
Martin V., the last before there was a ‘ Papa certus.’ Augustinus Patri- 
cius, c. 1488, accurately states the distinction, Ordo celebrandi Generalis 
Concilii, c. ix. (Walter, Fontes, i. p. 126). 

3 Ballerini, not. in Leon. M. Ep. 114 (Migne, 1. iv. pp. 1439-1441). 
Thomassin, Dissert. vi. in Syn. Oce. ii. pp. 134, 135. A. Duval, Tr. de 
Supr. Rom. Pont. Pot. p. vi. q. 6, p. 525 seq. ed. 1614, 


§ 6. 

It is also said that the order of business in the Council in- 
terfered with the freedom of the bishops. The opposition party 
allow that no settled order of business existed in the General 
Councils of the first century.!. At Constance? the necessity of 
some such arrangement was recognised, but under the pressure 
of extraordinary circumstances the practice of former Councils 
was entirely set aside. Likewise at Trent no restrictive order 
of proceeding was established ; Massarelli’s notes* contain only 
the order as actually observed there (modus observatus), and 
not any rule for such an order (modus praescriptus). The ques- 
tion put by Cardinal del Monte, during the discussion on a de- 
cree, whether the manner of proceeding gave satisfaction, cannot 
in truth be taken as proof that an agreement had been made 
with the bishops upon the whole order of business, as Dollinger 
desired. The Vatican order of business was in the main the 
same as that observed at Trent, often agreeing with it even word 
for word.® <A full discussion by the Council of the order of 
business would not have been possible without great loss of time. 
The right of the Pope to settle this order by virtue of his presi- 
dential office was not disputed even by the episcopal memorial 
demanding alterations, The order of business was in the first 
place drawn up and published by the Pope,® then further deve- 
loped according to the proposals of the majority of the Fathers, 
suggested by their experience,’ and as a matter of fact accepted 
by all the bishops. 

But in order more effectually to preserve freedom of vote to 
the Fathers, not only was the draft of the decrees submitted 


Charges against the Council. 145 





whole and entire (integra integre) to their free discussion, so 
that in word and in writing they could express their opinion upon 
them,’ but the privilege of making independent proposals was 
likewise granted them, naturally under certain conditions, some 
of which were intended to facilitate discussion.® A right of 
making proposals was fully conceded to the bishops, subject 
only to the control of the committee appointed for the purpose, 
precisely as was the case at Trent.!° Thus the Pope granted to 
the bishops, in a limited degree, a share in the initiative power 
which was his, without indeed lowering himself to the position 
ofa president subject to his parliament, which innovators would 
have had him do. 

That the presiding cardinals should from time to time in- 
terrupt bishops, and call them to order, was formally and ma- 
terially justified by the practice of all parliamentary assemblies, 
of the more ancient Councils,!! and even of the Council cf Basle,!” 
and happened to bishops of the majority as weil as to those 
of the minority. 

It is said, that in the disputes respecting the Council the 
Pope most plainly sided with one party, encouraging and com- 
mending the infallibilists by word and in writing, and blaming 
their opponents. Should he, then, have been silent when men 
were beginning to cast doubts upon a truth of which he was 
convinced, were intimidating and holding up to scorn the most 
faithful defenders of the Holy See, were announcing as true 
theological doctrine propositions long ago censured and con- 
demned, and going even so far as to call the doctrine of infal- 
libility an heretical doctrine? Is it not the duty and the right 
of the Pope to protect the faith of the Roman Church from 
calumny, and to defend it at every point, to uphold the decrees 
and censures of his predecessors, to preserve the prerogatives 
of the Apostolic See, especially as the ‘Curial system’ had be- 
come the watchword of the opposition ? 

The Pope never sought to check the discussion of diffi- 
culties, but only to check accusations made in the heat of 
the conflict against the constitution of the Church, and rash 


censure of a doctrine ever held in high esteem by her, which 
VOL, I. L 


146 The Vatican Counczl. 





doctrine, though not yet defined, could never be pronounced 
indefinable. While, on the one hand, those bishops who 
considered it as unneeded and inopportune to proclaim the in- 
fallibility of the Pope’s doctrinal decisions as a dogma were ap- 
pealing to the fact that Catholics had never been so submissive 
to the Pope as at the present time, those men, on the other hand, 
who considered themselves as the representatives of German 
learning called in question in the most shameless way the 
obedience due to the Pope, and raised aloft the banner of open 
insurrection. Against this the Pope was forced to lift up his 
voice, in a manner not to be misunderstood. - Neither physical 
force, nor threats, nor intimidation were employed; nor has a 
shadow of proof been brought forward of their existence. 

The proposal for the definition of infallibility was not 
amongst those laid before the bishops by the Holy See: it was 
brought in by an overwhelming majority of the Fathers. Ought 
the Pope to have simply rejected this petition of the bishops? 
How would it then have been with the freedom of the Council ? 
What do the oppositionists say on this point? If they say the 
Council would then have been free, they prove that they desired 
freedom for their own party only, and were willing to see tyranny 
exercised over the majority of the Fathers ; ifthey are forced to 
concede that the Council would not in that case have been free, 
how can they, in the interests of freedom, complain of the actual 
conduct of the Holy Father? 


1 Dillinger, Declaration in the Allgemeine Zeitung, March 11, 1870. 

2 Mansi, xxvii. 657, 658. 

3 Mansi, l.c. 563. 

* Friedrich, Doe. i. pp. 265-276. Cf. Fessler, Das Vaticanische Con- 
cil. Wien, 1871, p. 32. 

° The passages given in Cecconi’s History, i. Test. p. 172 seq., from 
the vote of von Hefele, then consultor at Rome, drawn up in 1869, prove 
moreover that many points of the order of business of Nov. 27, 1869, after- 
wards so bitterly attacked, corresponded closely with the proposals of this 
learned German, and in more than one respect put to shame the oppo- 
nents of the Council. 

° Const. Multiplices inter, 27 Nov. 1869. 

* Decret. Legat. 20 Feb. 1870. Cf. Schreiben, Ueber das Vatican. 
Concil. § 2, pp. 7, 8. 

§ Const. 27 Nov. 1869, § 7. 


Charges against the Council. 147 





9 Ib. § 2. Cf. Fessler, l.c. p. 34. 

10 Raynald. a. 15638, n. 32, Lit. Leg. ad Ferdin. I. Imp. 
Ms Pallavie. Hist:; Cone: “Trid: I. ix./c.1. n. 7. 

12 Mansi, Conc. xxix. 378. 


ee 

An attempt prejudicial to the freedom of the Council was 
indeed made, but it did not proceed from the side of the Pope ; 
far otherwise. The interference of secular diplomacy, by which 
in truth an attempt was made to exercise pressure on several 
bishops of the majority, and on the Pope himself, throughout 
the course of the Council, was called forth and extolled by that 
very opposition party which proclaimed the freedom of the 
Fathers injured by the Pope, and would fain have seen his legiti- 
mate influence lessened. In the newspapers of this party, since 
shown in its true heretical colours, there are not alone complaints 
as to the exclusion of laymen, and especially of the envoys of 
princes ; but it is moreover said that the opposition party was 
supported by France, and by French influence in the States of 
the Church ; that many bishops who were of this mind thought 
with painful longings of the Council of Trent, at which the 
envoys of monarchs supported the foreign bishops ; that first 
‘France and then Austria and Prussia mingled drops of worm- 
wood in the joyful cup of the homage of the majority. The 
two letters of Count Daru, and later his notes, were received, 
we are told, with exultation, and afterwards the memorials of 
other powers, until it was at length perceived that the Curia had 
succeeded in setting aside the attempted interference of govern- 
ments, so that the combat, as was fitting, had to be fought out 
by the bishops themselves. 

Without speaking of the distinguished ladies who ‘ had much 
to do’ with the minority in the Council, the so-called ‘ matri- 
archs,’ the warning given to not a few of the bishops on their 
road by the statesmen of various countries, and the influence 
exercised by accredited envoys in Rome, strengthened by menaces 
and intimidation from the home press, were all without doubt 
intended to act as pressure upon the bishops. Even before the 
opening of the Council attempts at dissuasion and intimidation 


148 The Vatican Council. 





of all sorts were made.! The adherents of Janus were con- 
stantly recalling the circular concerning the Council, issued by 
the former Prime Minister of Bavaria, the Prince von Hohenlohe, 
dated April 9, 1869. The Pope was openly threatened with the 
abolition of the Concordats, the withdrawal of the French garri- 
son, the prohibition of Peter’s pence, with attacks on Church 
property, and with numerous apostasies, especially among the 
Orientals. Intrigues were prepared long beforehand among the 
Armenians in Constantinople, the results of which are now seen. 

‘This intimidation,’ says a bishop, ‘ these menaces, supported 
by a press conducted in a manner corresponding, lasted for 
months; but some doubt being felt as to their effect, every means 
was at the same time employed to protract the labours of the 
Council, and so to lengthen its deliberations that the setting in 
of the hot season, or some other longed-for occurrence, might 
make the definition impossible, and render its postponement 
or that of the Council itself indispensable. And now persons, 
who must be well aware of the whole conspiracy against the 
freedom of the Council, bring the outrageous charge against the 
Pope, as though he had ‘ through moral pressure’ so impeded the 
freedom of the Fathers of the Council, that they voted for doc- 
trines which they did not acknowledge as true and handed down 
by tradition.’”2 


1 Friedrich, p. 349, tells us that as early as the summer of 1869 the 
Prussian and Bavarian governments were desirous that the aged king of 
Saxony should represent them at the Council as their envoy, which, how- 
ever, he declined to do. 


? Ratisbon Pastoral, Oct. 28, 1870, § 15, p. 49. 


§ 8. 

Truly comic was the demand made by a portion of the 
German press, that the decision should rest with the bishops of 
the opposition, even though few in number, because they repre- 
sented the largest dioceses, and the intelligent inhabitants of 
capitals and large towns, and because they themselves were the 
more learned men, while those who belonged to the majority 
were far behind them in intelligence and learning. This is in- 
deed a new rule never thought of in early ages. Had the votes 


Charges against the Council. 149 





ot the bishops been weighed according to the ‘ intelligent inha- 
bitants’ of their cities, the head-quarters of luxury and unbelief, 
how would it then have fared with the Church? Had sucha 
rule prevailed in the first eight centuries of the Church, the 
subject of so much praise, the heretical bishops of the ancient 
imperial city Constantinople, who were numerous, would have 
had the decision in their hands. Do bishops, then, come to a 
General Council merely as deputies of their people, as envoys 
from their dioceses? Or were the bishops of Nicea, for instance, 
in 325, estimated according to their learning? Was the decree 
of the Council ascribed rather to their knowledge, or to the 
Holy Ghost? Were not the Apostles ‘ unlearned men,’ through 
whom God put to shame the wisdom of this world? And have 
not all heretics charged the bishops who condemned them with 
ignorance !! Here again the so-called ‘ old Catholics’ show them- 
selves the worthy followers of heretics who have gone before ; 
they come forward as the sole ‘ defenders of learning ;’ but as is 
ever the case with falsehood, in so doing they involve them- 
selves in fresh contradictions. 

But have the majority of the Fathers been in rath con- 
-victed of ignorance of theology and weakness of intellect? If 
coarse abuse could be taken as proof, then indeed more than 
enough would have been given.? Happily, however, actual 
proof to the contrary exists. But how stands the case with the 
‘learned opposition bishops’? Alas, they lost their reputation 
at once when they submitted to the decrees of the Council. And 
even while they were as yet held in honour, a most unfavourable 
account of their learning was given us by one of the fanatical 
‘fallibilists,’ who pretends to have observed them closely, and 
to have had considerable influence with them ;? one prelate 
makes no use of theology, another no use of books. In general, on 
the side of the minority there are to be found ‘no truly great 
and imposing characters.’ The defenders of German learning 
were anxious to render even the bishops docile pupils and mere 
tools of their own ; while they also felt themselves called upon 
to save the honour of governments.* 

So far as the theological arguments of the opposition are 


120 The Vatican Council. 





concerned, it is easy to show that they are of no great scientific 
value. The oppositionists even suffered themselves to be betrayed 
into declarations which would have met with severe censure, not 
merely from the ‘ Curial authorities,’ but also from the ancient 
theological faculties, even from that of Paris ; e.g. that the denial 
of our Lord by St. Peter was an apostasy from the Faith > that 
all the Apostles, in an equal degree with St. Peter, were made 
foundation stones of the Church ;6 that the words in St. Luke 
xxii. 32 are to be confined to the person of St. Peter only during 
the time of Christ’s Passion ;7 that the striking words of the 
Fathers on the privileges of St. Peter are to be taken as rhe- 
torical exaggerations.§ The arguments brought forward against 
the definition proved weak, and were by no means left unan- 
swered, as has been maintained. The pamphlets were refuted 
in numberless replies, the speeches in powerful counter-speeches,? 
and the observations of individuals in the discussions of the 
dogmatic committee. But even if the fitting solution should not 
have been found for every doubt and every difficulty, is that any 
gain for our opponents? Did the ancient Church delay her defi- 
nitions until learning had removed every difficulty from the path ? 
Even now, after so much labour, do not scientific difficulties 
still exist on the canon of Scripture established by the Church, 
on the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Eu- 
charist ? 


1M. Canus, De Locis Theol. 1. v. ¢. vi. seq. 176. 

2 Take, for example, the revolting manner in which the Bishop of Pad- 
erborn is reviled in the Journal before mentioned and elsewhere, and 
also the late Bishop of Wiirzburg, Dr. Von Stahl, well known for his tho- 
rough knowledge of theology. 

? Friedrich, from whom also the other quotations. 

4 Interesting indeed is the statement in Friedrich’s Journal, p. 283: 
‘ Had not German learning [in the person of its representatives | saved the 
position [of the governments] and established an opposition in the Coun- 
cil, and kept it continually alive, even against the will of the govern- 
ments !! [a noble confession !] and had not our Lord God placed folly and 
ignorance on the side of the majority and of the Curia, governments would 
have been brought to shame in the face of the whole world.’ All parties 
in turn come in for a share in his compliments. 

5 M. A. de Dominis, 1. i. c. vi. n. 35 seq., censured by the Faculty of 
Cologne, 1618, and by that of Paris, 1617 (Du Plessis, t. iii. Pp. ii, p. 197; 
t. il. p. il. p. 105, prop. 8). 


Charges against the Council. 151 





6 De Dominis, l.c. n.. 45, 49, c. ix. n. 7. Censura Colon. l.c. pp. 197, 
200, as prop. haeretica. 

7 De Dominis, l.c. c. ix. n. 8. Censura Colon. l.c. p. 200. Cf. Synops. 
Obsery. n. 18, 22, 114, 134. 

8 De Dominis, l.c. n. 19 seq. Censura Colon. l.c. When E. Dupin 
(Nouvelle Biblioth. des Auteurs, 1.i. pp. 8, 19; p. ii. p. 274) designated the 
expressions used by St. Augustine and Theodoret in praise of the greatness 
of the Roman Church as compliments, the Archbishop of Paris, Francois 
de Harley, considered the epithet offensive, and Dupin explained: ‘Je 
n’ai point prétendu que ce fussent des complimens, qui ne soient pas fon- 
dés sur la vérité, reconnaissant que ces éloges sont trés-véritables’ (Du 
Plessis, t. iii. p. ii. p. 383). 

® Vide Animadversiones in quatuor libellos, and elsewhere. Cf. His- 
tor. Polit. Blatter, vol. Ixvi. p. 500 seq. 


§ 9. 

The composition of the Council was another ground of com- 
plaint, inasmuch as the Vatican Council numbered amongst 
its members entitled to a vote many who were not bishops.! 
But there were, in fact, only 59 of these to be set against 608 
consecrated bishops—that is, they formed not even a tenth part 
of the assembly ;? they consisted only of special personages, to 
whom by reason of their position the right of taking part in a 
Council is granted by ecclesiastical law, as was laid down as 
-early as the Council of Basle.2 These are cardinals, who, as 
electors of the Pope and organs of the central government of the 
Church, hold a prominent position, and who had, moreover, the 
right of vote in the Councils of the Middle Ages. Also generals 
of orders, most of whom have more priests under them than 
have many bishops ; and abbots-general, who, since the Seventh 
General Council, have had power to confer minor orders on 
members of their order,® and have possessed quasi-episcopal 
rights.6 No one felt any scruple when Paul III., in 1542, sum- 
moned to the Council of Trent the bishops, abbots, and others, 
‘to whom, by virtue of right or privilege, the power of tak- 
ing part and voting in a General Council has been granted.” 
Bishops lawfully consecrated, even though they possess no dio- 
ceses (bishops in partibus infidelium), belong by virtue of con- 
secration to the episcopate.6 ‘ Bishops without dioceses’ (Maret 
and others), whom the opponents of the Council.could number 


152 The Vatican Council. 





amongst themselves, were made welcome by them. Had they 
been able to claim the whole number, we may be sure no com- 
plaint would have been made of their lack of diocese. 


1 Kenrick, De Pontificia Infallibilitate, Neap. 1870, p. 35. 

2 Fessler, Das Vatican. Concil. p. 22. 

3 Thus, Augustin. Patric. Ordo Celebr. Conc. c. iii. (Walter, Fontes, 
p. 120). It is well known that Peter d’Ailly (Mansi, xxvii. 561) and Ger- 
son (De Pot. Eccles. ii. 25V) proposed a still further extension of the right 
of vote. 

4 Hefele, v. 984, seq. vi. p. 116. 

5 C. xiv. Hefele, iii. p. 447. Thomassin, de Vet. et Nova Discipl. p. i. 
1 tie /C. “yal. Nad. 

6 The Abbot of St. Columban had even, according to Bede, several 
bishops under him. 

7 Const. Initio Con. Trid. ed. Richter, p. 6. 

8 R. M. Coppola, Sul Diritto suffragio de’ Vescovi titolari e rinun- 
ziatarii nel Concilio Ecumenico, Napoli, 1868. Walter, Kirchenrechte, 
§ 157, p. 294. 


§ 10. 


Louder still are the complaints against the ‘ principle of 
majority, which in matters of faith is absolutely inadmissible, 
but which was followed nevertheless”! ‘I ask,’ writes Palla- 
vicini, ‘ with whom rests the power of decision? with the ma- 
jority, or with the minority? The practice ofall councils, of all 
assemblies, and even common sense itself, give an answer to the 
question.” In every assembly in which important questions are 
decided all are settled by the majority, and no one has yet 
maintained that the decision should rest with the minority. ? 
Had the Pope agreed with the minority in the Council; it is 
certain that the new Protestants would have praised him as 
much as they abuse him. Even the Gallicans considered a deci- 
sion unassailable when sanctioned by the Pope and a majority 
of the bishops. Moreover, Mgr. Maret, once so renowned 
amongst the oppositionists, even held the Pope to be bound to 
confirm the decision of the majority in the Council ;4 and it was 
only when it became plain that the majority of the Fathers was 
on the opposition side that support was sought in another 
quarter. How is the absolute inadmissibility of deciding by 
majority proved? By the theory, newly discovered, of moral 


Charges against the Council. 153 





unanimity,® which however has no sure foundation, either juri- 
dical or historical.6 

Even in the first six General Councils no such absolute unani- 
mity was required. Neither was it insisted upon at Constance ; 
still less at Basle or at Trent. Some amongst the bishops 
might be affected by heresy, as was the case at the First General 
Council of Nicea. According to this principle it would always 
be possible to such to put a stop to any definition. The idea of 
‘moral unanimity’ is, moreover, uncertain and elastic in the 
extreme, and has never been defined with precision.? 

Further, ‘moral unanimity’ did, as a fact, exist when the 
final and solemn votes were given, which, to the exclusion ofall 
preparatory votes, are alone to be considered here. Two bishops 
only voted ‘non placet,’ and even these afterwards gave in to 
the decision of the Council. Those who withdrew beforehand 
renounced thereby their right of voting, and were no longer 
aembers of the Council. The votes passed July 13th were not 
lecisive, and therefore many members of the Council were ab- 
sent who were strongly in favour of the definition, and after- 
wards voted solemnly for it. Amongst the 62 who at that time 
voted ‘ yes’ conditionally (placet juxta modum), the majority was 
composed precisely by those who, in opposition to Gallicanism, 
desired the words ‘of himself, and not through the previous 
agreement of the Church,’ to be added (ex sese, non autem ex 
consensu Ecclesiae). While all this proved the perfect freedom 
of the Fathers in giving their votes, it also showed the moral 
unanimity within the Council; and this was rendered more 
striking by the adhesion of many bishops who had been unable 
to appear in Rome, and who far out-numbered those who volun- 
tarily absented themselves. But it has been said that in Rome 
the first ‘no’ weighs incomparably more than the later ‘ yes.’ 
Why should this be?’ When, at the provisional voting of July 
13th, certain bishops replied in the negative, they were opposing 
no decree of the Church ; but when they afterwards voted ‘ yes,’ 
they did so in the face of an unassailable decree. The Bishop 
of Ermland observes :8 ‘ A deputy cannot disregard a law passed 
by the Chambers, and confirmed by the king, on the ground 


154 The Vatican Council. 





that he with the minority has ever expressed himself against it 
and dreaded its consequences. This rule, which applies to the 
government of a country, applies likewise to the laws of the 
Church, and bishops are bound to acknowledge and yield obe- 
dience to the canons lawfully passed by the highest ecclesiastical 
authority, even though they may previously have entertained 
opinions as to their opportuneness differing from the opinions of 
the majority; and even though from the excited and misguided 
state of public opinion they may have feared evil consequences 
from the passing of a decree in itself perfectly just.’ 

It is true that some fifty bishops did absent themselves from 
the fourth solemn assembly in the Vatican, July 18, 1870, and 
ina declaration dated July 17, 1870—before the definition there- 
fore—upheld and renewed their former negative votes ;9 but still 
they could neither turn the Council into a ‘rump Council,’ nor 
call in question the authority of the decree of 533 bishops, sanc- 
tioned by the Pope, as indeed the greater number of the absent 
bishops have themselves explicitly acknowledged.!° A docu- 
ment such as this, external to the Council, and proceeding from 
a fluctuating minority of between a ninth and a tenth part of the 
Fathers, could have as little weight against the Council as the 
protest of the 43 bishops assembled under John of Antioch at 
Ephesus in 431 against the true Council led by St. Cyril 5" it 
did not even carry the weight of an engagement on the part of 
those who signed it not to submit to the authoritative decision, 
and it was, moreover, retracted by the submission which followed. 

' Berchtold, Déllinger, &c. 

2 Cf. c. i. De his quae fiunt a maj. parte, cap. iii. 21. Innoe. III. 
1. ix. Ep. 125 (Migne, ccxv. 945). Turrecrem. de Eccl. 1. iii.c. xv. Jaco- 
bat. de Concil. 1. vi. a. 3, n. 1, 2, 57. 

3 Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. vii. diss. ii. prop. 2. Regnier de Eccl. 
Christi, p. i. sect. i. c. iii, Tournely, de Ecclesia, q. 4, a. 4, 5. 

* Maret, Du Concile et de la Paix Religieuse, i. p. 424. 

5 Doéllinger, Allgemeine Zeitung. De lUnanimité morale nécessaire 
dans les Conciles pour les Definitions dogmatiques, Naples, 1870. L’Una- 
nimité dans les Conciles écuméniques, Paris, Dentu, 1870. 

6 Steccanella, Adversus novam Doctrinam de necessitate Episcop. 
Consensus, Romae, 1870. Schneemann, in den Laacher Stimmen iiber 


das kum. Concil. ii. 3, pp. 52-70. M. Schrift, Ueber das Vatican. Concil. 
iii. pp. 13-16. 


Charges against the Council. Les 





7 Fessler, 1.c. p. 107. 

8 Letter to the Minister v. Miihler, Dec. 20, 1871: Cusine. Jan. 24, 
1872. 

® The Archbishop of Cologne and the Bishop of Mainz did not sign the 
declaration. 

10 Cf. Fehr. v. Ketteler, Die Minoritét auf dem Concil. p. 11. 
Cologne Pastoral, Sept. 12, 1870, p.10 seq. Tréves Pastoral, Sept. 14, 
1870. 

" Conc, Ephes. Hard. iii. 750. 


§ 11. 


Here again is another point of resemblance between this and 
former heresies. The theory that in a Council the majority can- 
not pass a decision, that bishops are merely the deputies of their 
Churches, and that their resolutions must first be agreed to by 
these Churches, was promulgated for the first time in Germany 
by the Protestant Samuel Pufendorf.! E. Richer? and his ad- 
herents in France, amongst whom above all are numbered the 
Jansenists, gave expression to precisely the same theory. In the 
foregoing century, its boldest defender, with the exception of 
Febronius,? was Petrus Tamburini of Pavia, according to whom 
in the last resort the faithful are entitled to decide whether a 
Council has in truth represented the Universal Church.*+ Pre- 
cisely similar is the doctrine of the apostate M. A. de Dominis, 
which, in so far as it insisted on the assent of laymen as neces- 
sary to the definition of an article of faith,® was declared by the 
Sorbonne, 1617, to be heretical, and destructive of the stability 
of the Church. Even amongst the Calvinists, in the years 
1565, 1582, 1598, the opinion that the government.of the 
Church, and in particular the definition of doctrine, belongs to 
the people, was condemned,’ and Sar to the civil magistrate 
was forbidden.® 

Moreover, Fénélon did not, as has been maintained,° consi- 
der bishops as legates and deputies of their dioceses, that is, of 
parts of the Church, but as deputies of the Church Universal.!° 
The assembly of the French clergy (1715) declared schismatical 
and heretical the opinion that bishops are to be looked upon 
as only delegates and interpreters of the assembly of the faithful, 
and only commissioned to declare the views of the Churches over 


156 The Vatican Council. 





which they preside! The theological Faculty of Cologne also 
declared, January 11, 1715, that assent or acceptance on the 
part of the faithful could impart no power or additional efficacy 
to the definition of the Pope.!? Neither can the decrees or 
judgments of a General Council be subject to the examination 
and approbation of individual diocesan synods, nor can their 
power of binding depend upon their acceptance by such synods, 
a proposition condemned by Pius VI. (1794) on occasion of the 
pseudo-Council of Pistoja.!3 


| Pufendorf, de Habitu Religionis Christ. ad Vitam Civilem, § 38, 
p. 126, ed. Brem. 1687, teaches that the members of a Council are not to 
be considered as members of a senate or college: ‘Quorum major pars 
suffragiis suis propositum negotium decidere queat, sic ut ista decisione 
quisque Christianorum stare utique teneatur, praesertim cum in universum 
veritas non semper a majori suffragiorum numero dependeat,’ but are not 
to be looked upon otherwise than as ‘ deputati ecclesiarum.’ ‘ Ad quam de- 
cisionem amplectendam Ecclesiae non tenentur, nisi quatenus cum divinis 
literis congruam deprehenderint..... Quodsi autem a Conciliis aliquid 
super moribus decretum fuit, id non aliter vim obligandi habere intelli- 
gitur, quam ex antegresso mandato aut subsequente approbatione eccle- 
siarum, sic ut Concilia nullum in Keclesiam imperium obtineant.’ 

2 Richer, de Eccles. et Politica Potestate, 1611. Cf. also Du Plessis, 
t. ii. P. ii. p. 308. 

3 Febron. de Statu Eecl. t. i. c. vi. § 8, n. 12, p. 436 seq. 

4 Tamburini, Vera Idea della Santa Sede, p. 204. Analisi delle Pre- 
scrizioni di Tertulliano, § 47, 65. Bolgeni, l’Episcopato, vol. ii. c. ii. a. 1, 
p- 93 seq., n. 412 seq.; and Risposta all’ Appellante, Macerata, 1787, p.431 
seq. Ddollinger, A. Z. March 11, 1870, wrote in precisely the same sense, 
and, as the Civiltaé Cattolica remarked, he wished to bring an Italian’s 
Jansenistical wares into esteem in learned Germany. 

5 M. A. de Dominis, de Rep. Christ. 1. i. c. xii. n. 42. 

6 Du Plessis, t. ii. p. ii. p. 106, n. 138. In like manner the Faculty of 
Cologne, 1618, ibid. t. iii. p. ii. pp. 203, 204. To the earlier sentence (1.c.), 
n. 9, of the same De Dominis—‘ Totam Ecclesiam esse columnam et hance 
Keclesiam totam non esse in solis episcopis et presbyteris, neque Spiritum 
illum, quem Christus sui vicarium relinquebat, in terris alligatum esse 
soli ordini presbyterorum aut episcoporum’—the Faculty of Cologne re- 
marked (p. 202): ‘ Propositio partim haeretica, partim fraudulenta ; indi- 
cat enim in definitionibus Conciliorum plebem habere votum decisivum et 
apostolum eodem detorquet.’ 

7 The Synod of Paris, 1565, condemned the writings of Jean de Moreli: 
‘Caren attribuant le gouvernement de l’Eglise au peuple, il veut introduire 
une nouvelle conduite tumultueuse et pleine de confusion populaire ;’ and 
the Synod of Montpellier, 1598, says: ‘Le jugement et les décisions, qui 
concernent la doctrine, n’appartiennent qu’aux ministres et aux pasteurs’ 


Charges against the Council. i577 





(Actes Ecclés. et Civ. de tous les Synodes Nation. de l’Eglise Reformée de 
France, t. i. pp. 58, 221). 

8 Synod of Vitré, 1582; Assembly of Montauban, l.c. pp. 160, 176. 
Franc. Turrettini, Instit. Theol. p. iii. q. 22, de Vocat. Pastor. § 18. Cf. 
Bianchi, t. i. 1. iii. § 1, n. 6, pp. 442, 443. 

® Dollinger, A. Z. 1.c. 

10 Fénélon, de Summi Pontif. Auctorit. c. xxxiv. t. ii. p. 861, ed. Vers. 

't Congr. Cleri Gall. Collect. des Procés-verbaux, t. vi. Piéces Justifi- 
catives, pp. 505, 506. 

12 Roscovdny, Rom. Pontif. ii. p. 62 seq. 

13 Const. Auctorem Fidei,n, 11. Denzinger, Enchir. p. 391, n. 1374. 


§ 12. 

‘It rests finally with us theologians,’ says Friedrich,! ‘ to 
decide whether the Council be ecumenical or no. I answer for 
it that as an Ecumenical Council it will be disowned.’ Natur- 
ally enough the Vatican Council did not submit to the guidance 
of such theologians as these. 

But what sort of theologians are they? They are theologians 
who have all but copied the book of the apostate Archbishop de 
Dominis, which was an object of indignation and disgust to all 
Catholics in his day, and even to Gallicans. The independent 
‘German theologians’ are come to this, that they bring forward 
heretical wares as being ‘ genuinely Catholic.’ They are liberal 
theologians, who are entirely under the dominion of so-called 
‘public opinion,’ who bow before the reigning spirit of the 
world, who desire to strip the Church of her divine character,? 
and who, in the place of her supernatural certainty, desire a 
purely natural moral certainty springing from universal testi- 
mony. To obtain this no supernatural aid of the Holy Ghost is 
needful ;* but woe to the Church, the Bride of Christ, if ever- 
changing ‘ public opinion’ were able to triumph over her! The 
description given by Tournely (1729)5 holds good of these liberal 
theologians : ‘The authority of the Church dispersed throughout 
the world (Ecclesia dispersa) is disowned, and to a General Coun- 
cil alone—which is itself made subject to the judgment of indi- 
viduals, and is not in truth acknowledged—is appeal made as 
the highest judge in cases of dispute. The sacred dignity of 
Pope and bishop is violated ; simple priests are placed almost on 
a level with bishops; the right of private judgment in matters 


158 The Vatican Council. 





of faith is claimed and usurped, not merely by simple priests, 
but even in the most insolent manner by laymen ; the Church is 
represented as so completely shrouded in darkness, that scarcely 
a faint spark of light seems to be left within her.’¢ 


1 Journal, p. 203; also p. 345: he wrote, that in fact the Council could 
no longer be spoken of as ecumenical, although, alas, the bishops 
could not be quite clear on the subject. 

2 Gioberti (La Riforma Politica, Torino, 1856, p. 54): ‘La dittatura 
dell’ opinione, e quindi dell’ ingegno ha luogo nella Chiesa come nello 
stato. In virtt dell’ opinione i fedeli hanno un potere sulla gerarchia. 
Dall’ opinione dipende la signoria estragerarchica dell’ ingegno nella 
societa cristiana ; ma non é mai antigerarchica. In ogni societa oltre i 
potert ordinarii 6 necessario un potere straordinario. Questo é creato 
dall’ opinione efondato su di essa. L ite docete 6 detto anchi ai laici. Il 
laicato lo esercita ora col commercio, ora colle conquiste.’ Dr. Dollinger 
expressed much the same idea in his speech, Sept. 28, 1863 (Verhandlun- 
gen der Kath. Gelehrtenversammlung in Miinchen, p. 47), when he 
pointed out public opinion as the extraordinary power existing in the 
Church side by side with the ordinary power, and which he likened to the 
race of prophets amongst the Hebrews. 

5 ‘Humanum conari Ecclesiam facere ;? Cypr. Ep. 52, ad Antonian. 

4 Cf. Historisch-polit. Blatter, vol. lxvi. p. 508. 

5 Du Plessis, D’Argentré Collect. Judie. t. iii. p.i. pp. 179, 180. Tour- 
nely, ibid. p. 183: ‘Hoc statuimus et contendimus, ....legem publica 
et legitima auctoritate latam firmam ex sese et inconcussam esse debere, 
nec privato cuicunque, ut eam infirmet, fas esse inquirere in examen 
modum et motivum, quo lata est (Can. de loc. v. 5, quoted). .... Quod- 
cunque supponatur legis motivum, fieri numquam posse, vi promissionum 
Christi, ut Ecclesia erroneam acceptet et approbet sententiam. Ergo 
legis literac, quae sola subsistit et vim habet, standum est ac supponen- 
dum, ne ulla deesset ex requisitis conditio ad firmam, certam et inconcus- 
sam definitionem.’ 


Parr III. Tue Hopes or our Opponents. 


§ 1. A new and ‘freer’ Council. § 2. Déllinger’s proposal. § 3. Pre- 
tended warfare of the Church against the State. § 4. Excommunica- 
tion. § 5. The Council a test of States. § 6. The heathen State and 
State omnipotence. 

SE, 

Throughout the opposition literature the hope was expressed 
of a ‘new Ecumenical Council,’ really free in discussion, which 
should do away with the Vatican Council of 18701 Yet this 
hope was over and over again checked by the harmony of the 
assembled bishops, ever plainly expressed, and it must have been 


The Flipes of our Opponents. 159 





acknowledged from the beginning to be a delusion by all who 
understood the subject. ‘ Never,’ wrote Bossuet on a certain oc- 
casion to Leibnitz, ‘ will an example be found of a definition 
once made being deprived of its power by posterity.’ 

Our opponents say that a new free Council should be assem- 
bled; the governments of States should compel the Pope to do 
this for the avowed purpose of ‘ revoking the new dogma, and 
declaring the Vatican Council of no account.’ This, then, would 
be a really free Council! And it should be held in Germany, 
whither the bishops of the Latin race would either come in small 
numbers, or not at all. That would indeed be a universal Coun- 
cil! And, moreover, appeal is made in the case of Bavaria to 
the Religionsedikt, § 56, by which the ruler has the right, if 
divisions arise in any religious denomination, of causing an ec- 
clesiastical assembly to be held, but the concluding sentence 
is ignored, ‘ without mixing himself up in matters of religious 
doctrine.’ 

Some have cherished the hope that the successor of the pre- _ 
sent Pope might set aside ‘ the offensive portions of the decrees 
of Pius IX.,’ and the recognition of the Prussian monarchy, re- 
fused by Clement XIL., but granted by Benedict XIV., has been 
brought forward as a precedent ; but this shows as little concep- 
tion of the dogmas and essence of the Catholic religion as the 
notion that the same end might be obtained by imposing cer- 
tain conditions on the newly elected Pope. Reasonable, from a 
human point of view, was the hope of the Revolution that the 
Papacy was buried with Pius VI., and the expectation that the 
power and cunning of men would put a stop to any future Papal 
election, or at least render it doubtful or invalid ;? but, seen by 
the light of the Catholic faith, this hope is idle. Catholics 
rely on the promises of our Lord, who will not withdraw His 
aid from His Bride, nor suffer the rock of Peter to fall to ruins. 
But the less they mix themselves up in the concerns of other 
religions, the more annoying to them is the way in which 
men who have not the slightest call to interfere, and who would 
never dream of obeying the Pope, still insist upon considering 
the future Papal election as their own affair. 


160 The Vatican Council. 





1 Berchtold, p. 10; Friedrich, Journal, p. 343; and others. 

2 The following appeared in the Allgemeine Zeitung, June 5, 1872: 
‘ We have hitherto spoken only of the possible influence of the European 
powers on the next Papal election, and of the conditional acknowledgment 
of the new Pope by the German empire. But what if it should come to 
pass that there is no valid election? Would not the thousand years old, 
the ‘‘ wonderful” organisation of the Roman Catholic hierarchy fall com- 
pletely all to pieces, so that side by side with the Gallican Church we 
should necessarily see national Churches in Italy, Spain, and Germany 
professing the Catholic faith, but existing independently and without any 
compulsory legislation ?’ 

§ ae 

When the declaration of Fulda, published by the majority of 
the German bishops, became known, the design of holding a 
Council on this side the Alps was felt to be impossible. There- 
fore Dr. Dollinger, in his declaration, appealed from the bishops 
ill educated to the bishops better educated, or in reality to pub- 
lic opinion, since he demanded that a conference should be held 
before the assembled bishops, or before a committee of the cathe- 
dral chapter of Munich, at which a government official should 
be present as a witness; or he promised to submit to the judg- 
ment of the most distinguished of German historical critics. 

But it is precisely from history that we learn how fruitless such 
disputations and conferences have ever been. Huss and Luther 
also professed themselves ready to retract, if only they were met 
with clear and convincing arguments. Take as an example the dis- 
putation at Leipzig, where each party claimed the victory. This 
shows us that although the evidence before us is (objectively) 
convincing, we may, if we choose, refuse to be (subjectively) con- 
vinced. Again, is a conference or a disputation to be of greater 
weight than a definition of faith pronounced by a General 
Council? or is it to overthrow an Ecumenical Council? In 
the Protestant movement of 1517, the Humanists were dragged 
into the fray; and now, in the new Protestant movement of 1871, 
the historians are dragged in, and are made to decide in a matter 
of faith ; for with such are we dealing, and not simply with an 


historical question, as Dollinger with the Protestant Hase sup- 
poses. 


The Hopes of our Opponents. 161 








§ 3. 

‘ What, then, is the contest which must now be fought out ? 
asked the Counsellor of the Court of Appeal, Von Enhuber, at 
Munich, September 23, 1871; and he forthwith received the 
answer: ‘It is no other than a contest of the Church against the 
State."! But were not these the words of the Jansenists and 
other sects, who gave out that their desire was to defend the 
State against the Church? How has the Church too much 
power, especially when her Head is oppressed as he is now? 
Who can point to a single act of aggression on the part of 
the Church? Is it possible to consider as suck the dogma of 
Infallibility, which has to do purely with matters of faith? 
and does not the mere attempt to prove it such involve gross 
misrepresentation of the dogma? When the peace between 
Church and State is troubled, the disturbance is not begun by - 
the Church. Can it be said that the Pope did so, when he de- 
clined diplomatic interference in questions of dogma? or the 
Council, when with an immense majority it pronounced a purely 
ecclesiastical decree? or Catholics, who, in obedience to their 
ancient faith, submitted to the highest authority in the Church, 
and made themselves answerable for her just rights, which were 
threatened by open foes, and by others secret, but soon to be 
unmasked? or the priests, who have defended the freedom of 
religious profession, and the rights of their Church, for the most 
part at the cost of great sacrifice, while those amongst their 
brethren who were untrue to the Church, and therefore excluded 
from her, were taken under the protection of the State, and 
sometimes loaded with honours besides? And are Catholics 
alone to hold their peace in the face of intrigues against Pius IX. 
and against the future Papal election, though their aim be no- 
thing less than endangering to the utmost the freedom of con- 
science of many millions of Catholics, for the sake of a small 
number of apostates? are they to hold their peace when all that 
is sacred is dragged in the dust, when absurd caricatures are 
hailed with delight, when the police are called in on all occa- 

VOL. I. M 


162 The Vatican Council. 


sions, and encouragement is given to ecclesiastical rebellion and 
anarchy in the Church? 
' Report, Berlin, p. 97. 


§ 4, 


Again, is the administration of the laws of the Church an 
attack on the State? or the excommunication, which, according 
to primitive right, founded upon Holy Scripture, and existing 
even amongst Protestants and Freemasons, is pronounced by 
lishops against apostate and heretical priests? which sentence, 
far from injuring the civil rights of those concerned, has, on the 
contrary, been the means of making many persons famous who 
would not otherwise have been so. When the priest Thomas 
Braun was excommunicated for denying the dogma of the Im- 
maculate Conception,! the highest court of justice in Bavaria, 
on his bringing.an action, declared, May 3, 1860: ‘ The Catholic 
priest loses his claim on the Catholic Church for the support due 
to his position on quitting that Church, equally whether he 
leaves her willingly, or whether, having been ordained, he is cut. 
off from her in punishment by the existing ecclesiastical autho- 
rities. For the penalty of complete exclusion from the Church, 
so long as it lasts, entails the loss of all rights springing from 
union with her, precisely as though the person in question left 
her of his own free will.2 Moreover, the Catholic Church, by 
the well-known principles of her constitution, is entitled to 
demand from her subjects the acceptance on faith of all her 
decrees dogmatically pronounced, and to punish every positive 
and continuous denial, even though it be directed against one 
dogma only, with the greater excommunication,® provided the 
punishment, in the case in question, be inflicted by the proper 
ecclesiastical courts. ‘There can be no doubt, according to the 
Verf.-Urk. Supplement ii. § 38/4 and 40, that in this case the 
episcopal court of Passau was acting within the limits of its 
power. Dut the civil court is not competent to decide whether 
the excommunication has been justly pronounced against the 
plaintiff.’ 

The case of the excommunicated priest Thomas Braun has 


The Flopes of our Opponents. 163 





exactly repeated itself; whether the dogma in question be that 
of Papal Infallibility or of the Immaculate Conception, the case 
is the same from the standpoint of the civil authorities; both 
dogmas were published in the same manner, and one is as bind- 
ing upon Catholics as the other; the excommunication was in 
each case pronounced by the proper authority. Whether the 
Government of the country does or does not itself accept the 
dogma in no way affects the matter; the Government must in 
any event regard it as rightfully existing within the domain of 
the Church; and within this domain, according to Catholic prin- 
ciples, the ecclesiastical authority alone has power to decide. 

Since in matters touching the Catholic Church the State 
courts are by no means competent to act, neither most surely are 
their administrative magistrates, especially in deciding whether 
an excommunication has or has not been rightfully pronounced. 
The jurisdiction of the Church authorities is acknowledged by 
the constitution ; interference in favour of persons cut off from 
the Church, for the protection of rights which belong to them 
only as members of the Church, can in no way be justified, espe- 
cially as by this means the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical 
authorities is nullified, and complete Czesarism ensues. 

1 It is by no means true, as was maintained at Munich in 1871 (Re- 
port, p. 98): ‘ That the bishops, when the dogma of the Im. Conception 
was denied, forbore to disturb the peace of the country,’ while in the 
case of the new dogma they ‘at once raised a storm, in order apparently 
to get the sceptre of the State itself into their own hand.’ 

? On this point was quoted Permaneder, Handbuch des Kath. Kirchen- 
rechte, vol. ii. § 557, n. 2; Kreitmahr, Anmerk. vol. v. c. xix. § 41, n. 3. 


3 Reference was here made to Annotat. ad Cod. Civ. v. c. xx. § 4, V.-U. 
Sup. ii. § 41, coll. § 38a. 


$5. 

The Vatican Council, together with its first great object of 
defending the Catholic Faith, and keeping it pure from the cor- 
rupting influences of rationalism and subjectivism, serves also as 
a test of States, as to whether and in what degree they still pre- 
serve the Christian character. 

A State which is still Christian cannot repudiate its duty 
towards a recognised religion endowed with constitutional rights, 


164 The Vatican Council. 





in favour of a sect clearly recognisable as such, and declared to 
be a sect by the competent Church authorities, and which, 
whether it will or no, proves itself by its own conduct to be 
such. It is true that a pretence is made of exceeding difficulty 
in deciding where the real Catholics are to be found, whether 
amongst the adherents of the Vatican Council, or its opponents. 
But nothing is easier or more simple. The Catholic Church is 
there where are the Pope and the Bishops; where exists com- 
munion with and obedience to the See of Rome; she is the 
Roman Catholic Church alone.1 Even the heathen emperor 
Aurelian knew well how to distinguish true Catholics from the 
followers of Paul of Samosata, when he promised the Church 
buildings, about which a dispute had arisen, to those in com- 
munion with the Italian bishops, and especially with Rome.? 
Have not the followers of Dollinger already proved themselves 
a sect, and openly declared themselves Jansenists, by bringing 
from Utrecht (where a Roman Catholic bishop was in residence) 
Archbishop Loos, who was cut off from communion with the 
Church as a Jansenist, and was not recognised by a single 
Catholic bishop ? 

Plain rights cannot be set aside by an appeal to the ‘ irre- 
futable German science,’ and to learned men who, besides an 
unparalleled changeableness of opinion, are answerable for the 
grossest errors, from which no one yet has succeeded in vindi- 
cating them; the faithful turn their backs upon them as false 
prophets, while the enemies of Christianity lend them the most 
open assistance ; and those men who have long ago. banished 
‘the whole apparatus of the history of revelation to the cabinet 
of old curiosities’ are the loudest in their protestations against 
‘the good pleasure of an old man or his advisers being the 
highest law for the actions and inquiries of the human mind.’ 
Where nothing exists beyond pure negation the Catholic is 
never to be found ; the ‘ reformers’ of to-day have nothing posi- 
tive about them, nothing but destruction and anarchy. If the 
‘ Christian State’ of these latter days does not perceive this, if 
it still thinks to find support in these reformers, then all Chris- 
tian consciousness is completely lost to it. 


The FTopes of our Opponents. 165 





1 This is the Church spoken of by the Prussian Verfassungs-Urkunde, 
1850, art. 15, and the Bavarian Concordat, art. 1. 

2 Kus. H.E. 1. vii.c. xxx. The Theological Faculty of Paris, 1611, in 
its censure of a book having great affinity with Janus, entitled Le 
Mystére d’Iniquité, c’est A dire, l’Histoire de la Papauté, by Philippe 
Mornais Du Plessis, pronounced: ‘ Merito omnes Catholici exsecrari illos 
debent, qui §.R.E. primatum atque unicam Petri Cathedram scriptis suis 
evertere moliuntur, cum certissimum sit, Ecclesiam, quae est mysticum 
corpus visibile Christi, nulla re vel nota accuratius dignosci, aut a factiosis 
Satanae conventiculis quam uno visibile capite secerni posse’ (Du Plessis, 
t. ii. p. ii. p. 49). 

3 Allgemeine Zeitung, Jan. 7, 1870. 


§ 6. 


But to go still further ; the question of the day is, whether 
the ancient heathen State is to be revived in its most brutal de- 
velopment. Against the infallibility of the Church in her office 
as teacher is opposed in truth the omnipotence of the State in 
every sphere of life. 

The heathen State, as Dollinger once wrote,’ was founded 
on the principle of utility, of interest, and of brute force ; it 
sought to penetrate all spheres of life, and as an ever-working, 
ever-grinding machine, to bow down the nations beneath its 
yoke. It believed, as up to the very latest times the Govern- 
ment of Japan also believed, that the doctrines of Christianity 
would undermine its very existence ; worship of the fatherland 
was to it the soul of religion. Freedom of conscience was un- 
known to it,? and it saw in the Christian Church merely an un- 
lawful society (collegium illicitum). 

There are in the present day many who desire to replace 
the power of the State upon its old ground ; they would abso- 
lutely root out from the Word of God the passage (Acts iv. 19 ; 
v. 29),‘God must be obeyed rather than man.’ They would 
enforce the observance of all State laws already passed or to be 
passed in future (according to the good pleasure of the lawgiver 
of the day), as binding unconditionally and inviolably, without 
regard to the laws of God and of the Church. The bishops, it 
is said, much as in Russia,® are to submit without condition to 
all existing laws, and to those which by a continual increase of 


166 The Vatican Council. 





government interference are yet to be passed by an insatiable 
majority in the Chambers. They are said never to be at liberty 
to consider a human law as non-binding, which declaration nei- 
ther bishop nor simple layman could ever make without gravely 
sinning against the first principles of Christianity.* This means 
no longer to render to Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, but to 
deliver up to him also the things that are God’s ; obedience is 
to be withdrawn from God, and to be slavishly given to men, 
who are no longer His representatives, and who are overstepping 
the authority which in justice belongs to them. 

The authority of the Church is no longer to be acknow- 
ledged, but in every sphere State omnipotence alone ; and while 
it is impossible to point out one single case in which the rights 
of the State have been violated in consequence of the new dogma, 
the ancient rights of the Church, on the contrary, have been al- 
ready grievously violated and set at naught. Civil governments 
will be driven so far as no longer to acknowledge any law not 
springing from themselves; the State will be made into a god, 
and divine honours will be claimed for it so long as unbelievers 
guide the helm. 

This is the meaning of the fight for life or death with the 
Catholic Church, which is set down to her political pretensions. 
A man who has himself merely political aims, and has no con- 
ception of religious belief, supposes that the same is the case 
with others also; and when he meets with firm convictions 
founded on faith, he presumes some criminal intention, and calls 
physical force to his aid. Thus true Catholics are suspected by 
the mighty of the earth as dangerous to the State; whoever 
stands up for their doctrines is ‘no friend of Cesar ;’ the war- 
fare is carried on against them, not merely by a restless and 
uneasy press, by the intellectual pride of the puffed-up wise 
ones of this world, and the childish darkness of men of super- 
ficial knowledge; but the police and the magistrate as instru- 
ments of despotism are also brought forward against them, they 
are threatened in their possessions, and if possible are deprived 
of all rights. Almost every form of unbelief or of superstition 
is tolerated, every sect, every party; from Catholics alone are all 


The Hopes of our Opponents. 167 





rights to be withdrawn ; their steadfastness is fanaticism, their 
sacrifices and assemblies are conspiracy. 

Thus the endeavour of their enemies is to reducé all true 
Catholics to the position of the Christians of the first three cen- 
turies. But however grave the times may be, however fierce 
the battle raging against the Church, Catholics rely not on man, 
nor on any earthly power, but on the promise of God, which 
shall never be overcome, and the future will prove that once 
again, on July 18, 1870, the Church spoke ‘ to the honour of 
God our Saviour, to the exaltation of the Catholic religion, and 
to the welfare of all Christian nations. 


1 Déllinger, Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 697. 

* Dollinger, l.c. p. 667. Neander, Kirchengeschichte, i. pp. 47, 48, 
lit: &: 

3 In Russia every Greek schismatic bishop has to swear at his conse- 
eration that he will duly and conscientiously hold the office confided to 
him, both according to the general and personal instructions, regulations, 
and orders given, and to be in future from time to time given, in the 
name of his imperial Majesty by the officers appointed by him; and 
further, that he will maintain inviolable all things ‘ prescribed by the 
regulations of the most holy directing Synod for the whole of Russia, and 
by the Synodal documents, and likewise all that in the future may be 
unanimously ordered and laid down as law by the same most holy Synod, 
with the permission of his imperial Majesty’ (M. Rajewsky, Euchologion 
der Orthodox-Katholischen Kirche, Wien, 1861, ii. pp. 94, 97). 

‘ This is well pointed out, and a reference is made to Art. 16 of the 
Augsburg Confession and the Reformers, by a Protestant writer in the 
-Germania, June 2, 1872. 


ESSAY IV. 
THE POPE AND THE BISHOPS. 


No assertions have been so frequently repeated as these: that 
by the Vatican Constitution of the Church the position of 
the bishops has been changed ; that the episcopate has become 
an unsubstantial shadow, and that bishops are now no longer 
bishops, but Papal deputies or plenipotentiaries, and merely in- 
struments of the Pope, who has been invested with the uni- 
versal episcopate. 

These are the charges brought by the opponents: 1. That 
the Vatican Council has converted the bishops into mere pleni- 
potentiaries of the Pope. 2. Thatit derives episcopal authority 
from the Pope, and not from God. 3. That it invests the Pope 
alone with the almost boundless power of the Church. Let us 
take these propositions separately. 


Part I. Tur BisHorps HAVE NOT BECOME MERELY VICARS 
OF THE Pope. 
§ 1. The power of the Pope the supreme but not the only power. § 2. 
Doctrine of theologians upon the ordinary and immediate power of the 


Pope. § 3. The power of the Pope does not annul the ordinary power 
of the bishops. § 4. The bishops as successors of the Apostles. 


Sl: 


According to the doctrine of the Church, the power of the 
Popes is a full power, as it is called by the Council of Florence,! 
because there is no power in the Church in which the Head of 
the Church does not partake.? It is a supreme power, as the 
Council of Trent? calls it, because in the Church there is none 
more exalted, because all others depend upon it, itself inde- 
pendent of all. It is an ordinary power, as it is called by the 


Bishops not merely the Pope's Vicars. 169 





Fourth Council of the Lateran,® because the Pope, by the rights 
appertaining to him as head of the bishops, can perform eccle- 
siastical acts in any diocese. As the bishop can, for example, 
according to his ordinary right, baptise where the parish priest 
either from carelessness or from some hinderance has not bap- 
tised, so the Pope can supplement the remissness of a bishop.® 
The power of the Pope is an immediate power, because it springs 
not from the Church, not from the bishops nor Councils, but 
from Christ Himself, and also because it can be directly exer- 
cised upon the faithful and their pastors.’ It does not abolish 
the direct power of the bishops, but supplements and compen- 
sates it when interference is desirable for the good of the Church.® 
The power of the Holy See is an episcopal power, because its 
rights even over bishops are those of a bishop, and because the 
Pope is the bishop of bishops, the father of the fathers, the 
pastor of pastors.® 

But as St. Bernard,!° and with him all theologians," teach, 
this supreme Papal power is not the only power to be found in 
the Church. The Pope has no power to abolish the episcopate ;1? 
he cannot outstep the limits of Christ’s appointment, and all 
the earlier definitions of the Church are binding upon him. 
The Vatican Council plainly declares that the supreme authority 
of the Holy See is not opposed to the authority of the bishops ; 
bishops have by the Holy Spirit been constituted successors 
of the Apostles, and endowed with ordinary and immediate 
powers.}* 


1 Potestas plena. Decr. Union. Denzinger, l.c. n. 589, p. 201. 

2 Aichner, Compend. Jur. Eccles. Brix. 1862, § 24, p. 66, note 3. 
Petr. Ballerini, Vindiciae Auctorit. Pontif. c. iii. n. 10, p. 172, ed. 
Monast. 

3 Potestas suprema seu summa. Trid. Sess. xiv. 

4 Aichner, l.c. Ballerini, l.c. n. 1, p. 165 seq. : ‘ Suprema illa est quae 
supra omnes Ecclesiae potestates ita eminet, ut nulli istarum subjiciatur.” 
With Pius VI. (Respons. super Nuntiaturis Apost. c. viii.) the Fathers of 
the Provincial Synod of Aix, 1850, tit. ii. c. vii., describe it as ‘ suprema, 
plena numerisque omnibus absoluta,’ and call it ‘veri nominis juris- 
dictio, cui populi populorumque pastores subjacent, adeo ut in jure eccle- 
siastico summus Pontifex nihil non possit, ubi id exposcit necessitas aut 
justa Ecclesiae utilitas.’ 

5 Potestas ordinaria. Later. iv. 1215, ¢. iii. s. c. xxiii.de Privil. v. 33 


N 


170 The ee and the aie be a 





(Rom. Eccl.) : ‘ pEsiaaee Domino super omnes alios ordinariae potesta- 
tis obtinet principatum.’ 

6 Ballerini, l.c. n. 7, pp. 170, 171. 

7 Potestas immediata. Ballerini, de Potest. Eccles. Summor. Pontifi- 
cum, c. i. § 1 et 2, pp. 9-11. Gerson ap. Thomassin, P. i. 1. i. c. vi. n. 14. 
Also the Conc. Province. Burdigalense, 1850, tit. 4, c. i. of the Pope: ‘ That 
he is summus pastor, qui per universum orbem solus dioeceses instituit vel 
dividit iisque praeficit episcopos et jurisdictione immediata ubique pollet? 
(Freppel, de Primatu Rom. Pontif. Taurizi, 1870, p. 14). 

8 Gerson, de Potest. Eccles. ii. p. 256: ‘Plenitudo potestatis non 
potest esse de lege ordinaria nisi in unico summo Pontifice formaliter et 
subjective. Alioquin ecclesiasticum regimen non esset monarchicum et 
habere posset multiplex caput ex aequo, quod aperte est haereticum. Nec 
tamen plenitudo potestatis papalis sic intelligenda est immediate super 
omnes Christianos, quod pro libito posset immediate jurisdictionem in 
omnes per se vel per alios extraordinarios exercere; sic enim praejudicaret 
Ordinariis, quijus habent immediatius, imo immediatissimum super plebes 
eis commissas actus hierarchicos exercendi. Extenditur igitur plenitudo 
potestatis papalis super omnes inferiores solum dum subest necessitas ex 
defectu Ordinariorum inferiorum vel dum apparet evidens utilitas Eccle- 
siae, quemadmodum dici potest de episcopis respectu plebanorum seu 
propriorum sacerdotum, quorum possunt supplere defectus.’ Cf. Decret. 
1. i. tit. 10, de Supplend. Neglig. Praelat. Calixtus III. wrote to the Em- 
peror Frederick (Aen. Sylv. Ep. 385): ‘ Non est, cur aliquis operam 
nostram criminari possit, tamquam latius evagemur quam nobis liceat aut 
tamquam in alienam messem falcem mittere videamur, cum non hujus aut 
illius provinciae sed universi orbis praesulatum in apostolicae sedis specula 
consecuti simus. Quae quum ita sint scimus tamen, eos, qui vocati sunt 
in partem sollicitudinis, non esse turbandos suamque cuique jurisdictio- 
nem, nisi forsitan abutantur, servandam esse non ignoramus.’ 

® Potestas episcopalis. Theod. Stud. 1. i. Ep. 34. Bernard. de Consid. 
1. ii. ¢. viii. n. 15. Cf. Thomassin, p. i. 1. i. c. xi. n. 3. Coustant. Praef. 
in Epist. Rom. Pont. p. xi. n. 15. 

10 Bern. de Consid. 1. iii. c. iv. n. 17. 

" Ballerini, lc. p. 171, n. 9. Neubauer, in Theol. Wirceb. t. vii. 
Tr. de Leg. ¢. iii. a. 5, n. 106, p. 140. 

1 Gerson, de Statib. Eecles. Consid. 4: ‘Status episcopalis non ita 
subest statui papali, quod illum Papa possit annullare, sicut nec status 
papalis posset humanitus destitui.’ 

13 The words run thus: ‘ Tantum autem abest, ut haec Summi Ponti- 
ficis potestas officiat ordinariae ac immediatae illi episcopalis jurisdictionis 
potestati, qua episcopi, qui positi a Spiritu S. (Act. xx. 28) in Aposto- 
lorem locum successerunt (Trid. Sess. xxiii. c. iv. de Ord.), tamquam veri 
pastores assignatos sibi greges, singuli singulos, pascunt et regunt, ut 
eadem a supremo et universali Pastore asseratur, roboretur ac vindi- 
cetur.’ 


Bishops not merely the Popes Vicars. 171 








§ 2. 

The Vatican Council has imputed no new powers to the Pope. 
Before the Council no one_hesitated in using the expressions 
commonly employed by theologians. Thus we read in a paper 
that obtained the prize! offered by the Theological Faculty of 
Munich in 1868: ‘It is lawful for the Pope to place reserva- 
tions upon the jurisdiction of bishops.’ Whosoever can place 
reservations upon the jurisdiction of another holds the supreme 
authority. This power of supreme pastor possessed by St. Peter 

.is an ordinary and immediate power, since it is derived from the 
lips of Christ Himself. According to the doctrine of the pri- 
mitive Church, the inheritance of this supreme power conferred 
upon St. Peter has descended upon the Bishop of Rome. By 
virtue of this immediate power of jurisdiction, which extends to 
all the faithful, the Pope has authority to retain and to forgive 
the sins of the faithful over the whole world.? Schulte used 

* to have no hesitation in ascribing to the Pope the plenitude of 
the power of the priesthood conferred by Christ Himself,3 and 
no objection was made when Phillips wrote :* ‘ Christ has given 
to Peter the full, supreme, and ordinary power extending over the 

-whole Church.”* Yet now it is made a difficulty that the Council 
has adjudged to the Pope the ordinary and immediate power as 
well over all Churches as over all pastors and all the faithful. 

1 Hausmann, Gesch. der Pipstl. Reservatfalle, Ratisbon, 1868, p. 5 
a According to the Conc. Trid. Sess. xiv. cap. vii. de Casib. Reserv. 
* System des Kirchenrechts, Giessen, 1856, pp. 178, 190. 

* Kirchenrecht, v. § 201, p. 6. 

5 Even Gallicans, such as Natalis Alexander, recognise the full and 
ordinary power of the Pope. ‘ 
§ 3. 


One of the chief allegations against the third chapter of the 
Vatican Constitutions is this: that it ascribes to the Pope the 
ordinary and immediate power of jurisdiction in every diocese, 
together with the fulness of supreme power; and it being in- 
conceivable that there should be two possessors of the ordinary 
and immediate power of jurisdiction for each diocese, two bishops, 


172 The Pope and the Bishops. 





two spouses, the words can only be taken to imply that the Pope 
is the bridegroom-general for each and every diocese, conse- 
quently is properly speaking its only authorised bishop, and the 
resident bishop becomes merely a dependent of the Pope, an 
acting intermediary, charged with some of his powers! But 
as far as this metaphor of marriage is concerned, it is only 
a metaphor, and the same conclusions cannot be drawn about 
the mystical spiritual marriage of a bishop with his diocese as 
about the natural marriage of a man and woman.? In this sense 
each see must have two spouses—Christ and the bishop. When 
the Apostles constituted their disciples, Timothy, Titus, and the 
rest, bishops of certain places, they still exercising their apos- 
tolic supremacy, each of these Churches must have had several 
spouses. The parish priest may also be considered as spiritually 
espoused to his parish ; but this parish forming part of the dio- 
cese partakes in the general relation of the latter to the bishop. 
Secondly, if there were in the same diocese two men having - 
the same spiritual power it would, of course, be irregular and 
abnormal; but it is not so of two powers existing at the same 
time, of which one is subordinate to the other. The parish priest 
also has an ordinary and immediate jurisdiction, which is sub- 
ordinate to the bishop, and does not exclude his jurisdiction. 
Bishops have an ordinary and immediate jurisdiction, which 
is also subordinate.* Just as a judge of a court in which cases 
are first heard is not the less truly a judge because over him are 
other judges of higher courts, so a bishop is not the less truly 
a bishop because he is subordinate to the Pope, the Vicar of 
Christ. 

The Pope has been compared by St. Thomas Aquinas to a 
king in his kingdom, the bishops to the judges in their special 
cities.© As aking may for just causes (for government should, 
according to St. Thomas, never be arbitrary) displace a judge 
from his office, so the Pope, when the safety of the Church de- 
mands it, can remove a bishop from his see, as Pius VII. did 
in France after the Concordat of 1801. A king may limit the 
powers of a judge, and the Pope may, by reservations, partitions 
of dioceses, and other measures, limit episcopal jurisdiction.® 


Bishops not merely the Pope's Vicars. 173 





As a king imparts of his own full powers authority to his infe- 
rior officers, so the Pope may by his supreme authority transfer 
full powers to the bishops, in which case the bishops, as the 
Council of Trent teaches, may act as delegates of the Holy See. 


! Berchtold, pp. 7, 8. 

2 Innocent III., following still earlier usage, often has recourse to 
this metaphor, especially about the translation of bishops, for example : 
1. i. Ep. 326, 335, 447, 490, 1. ii. Ep. 278, pp. 291, 306, 422, 456, 845, c. ii. 
vii. de Translat. Episcop.i. 7, and even calls the spiritual bond in a certain 
sense fortius quam carnale, that can only be loosed by divina auctoritate 
(per Christi vicarium). But the translation of bishops shows that this 
vinculum spirituale can be loosed. Salmeron (Andries, Alph. Salmeronis 
Doctrina, p. 192) says: ‘ Vinculum episcopi cum sua ecclesia, quantum 
est ex parte utriusque, indivisibile esse deberet ; sed quia Ecclesiae aedi- 
Jicatio exigebat, ut ex variis causis solveretur voluit Deus, ut solubile 
esset per suum vicarium.’ In relation to another matter, Salmeron uses 
this comparison, p. 237: ‘Sicut copula matrimonii non tollet vinculum 
matrimonii, novum inducendo, sed firmat antiquum; ita etiam consecratio 
non inducit novam et superfluam jurisdictionem. . . . sed stabilit antiquam 
datam a Papa (confirmante) ante consecrationem.’ In the act of appoint- 
ment of the bishop the Pope appears as ratifying the bond in the place of 
Christ. 

3 In their censure upon the work entitled La Défense de l’Autorité de 
N.S. le Pape, par J. de Vernant, Metz, 1658, the Sorbonne made this 
statement in reference to the proposition, p. 44: ‘ Les curés ne sont pas 
immédiatement établis de Jésus-Christ,’ and similar ones, pp. 46 seq. , 448, 
478: ‘ Hae propositiones, quatenus asserunt vel inferunt potestatem juris- 
dictionis curatorum non esse immediate a Christo, quantum ad institu- 
tionem primariam, falsae sunt et decretis S. Facultatis contrariae, salva 
semper immediata episcoporum in praelatos minores seu curatos et ple- 
bem subditam auctoritate’ (Du Plessis, t. iii. p. i. p. 104). And in 1735 
the Sorbonne said: ‘Propositio quae tollit ab episcopo immediatum 
regimen parochiarum suae dioeceseos est ministerii episcopalis eversiva 
et Verbo Dei contraria’ (ib. p. 214). 

4 Thom. in 1. iv. d. 17, q. 3, a. 3, sol. 5, ad 3: ‘ Inconveniens esset, si 
duo aequaliter super eamdem plebem constituerentur, sed quod duo, quo- 
rum unus est alio principalior, super eamdem plebem constituantur, non 
est inconveniens, et secundum hoc super eamdem plebem immediate sunt 
et sacerdos parochialis et episcopus et Papa.’ 

5 §. Thom. in lib. iv. sent. d. 20, q. 4, a. 3,ad 3, quaestiunc 4, sol. 3: 
‘Papa habet plenitudinem potestatis pontificalis quasi rex in regno, 
episcopi vero assumuntur in partem sollicitudinis quasi judices singulis 
civitatibus praepositi.’ Cf. in 1. ii. dist. et q. ult.: ‘Sicut se habet po- 
testas Dei ad omnem potestatem proconsulis: sic etiam se habet potestas 
Papae ad omnem potestatem spiritualem in Ecclesia.’ Turrecrem. Sum. 
de Eccl. 1. ii. c. lxiv. 

6 Cf. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, v. § 220, p. 339 seq. 


174 The Pope and the Bishops. 





§ 4. 

But this comparison has been violently attacked, because it 
is said to repudiate altogether the divine constitution of the 
episcopate as well as the continuance, if not the right, of any 
apostolic succession. 

To this we reply, first, that a comparison should never be 
stretched beyond the point of comparison, which in this case is 
the extension of power, and the question of the origin of the 
power is wide of the mark ; secondly, that we must never forget 
to make the distinction between the divine institution of the 
episcopate and the appointment of each individual bishop, as 
well as to distinguish between the succession of bishops in the 
episcopate and that in the apostolate properly so called. 

Bishops are, indeed, successors of the Apostles, as we learn 
from the Councils of the Vatican and of Trent, but this does not 
mean that everything that appertained to each individual Apostle 
appertains also to each individual bishop, each having the same 
supreme power.! They are their successors, not as being the 
immediate witnesses and ambassadors of Christ furnished with 
extraordinary powers, but only as ordinary pastors and guardians 
of the Church. The individual bishop is not the successor of 
an Apostle as the Bishop of Rome is the successor of St. Peter ; 
but the congregation of bishops with the Pope at its head is 
the successor of the College of Apostles. The Apostles were not 
limited to any particular space in the exercise of their power ; 
the bishops are limited to their dioceses, and this limitation is 
an arrangement rendered necessary by the constitution of the 
Church.* The opinion of theologians is divided upon the ques- 
tion of how far the episcopal authority is derived immediately 
from God ;* and this we proceed to inquire into more closely. 


1 The Sorbonne in 1617 censured as follows the proposition of M. A. 
de Dominis (De Rep. Chr. 1. ii. c. i. n. 9, 13, 15), Prop. xiv.: ‘Sicut Apos- 
toli simul et in solidum aristocratice curam gerebant Ecclesiae cum po- 
testate aequali et universali, ita episcopi omnes simul et in solidum 
eandem regunt Ecclesiam, singuli cum plena potestate. Haec prop. est 
haeretica et schismatica quoad ultima verba ‘“singuli cum plena potes- 
tate.”’ Prop. xv.: ‘Episcopi dicuntur Apostolorum successores, quia in 


Derivation of Episcopal Authority. 175 





eorum officio, quod erat Apostolorum omnium commune, succedunt omnes 
omnibus in solidum. Haec prop. est haeretica et schismatica cum agat 
de jurisdictionis apostolicae potestate.’ Prop. xvi.: ‘In potestate uni- 
versali succedunt episcopi non modo universi, sed etiam singuli. Haec 
prop. haeretica est et schismatica, ut duwae praecedentes’ (Du Plessis, 
Coll. Jud. t. ii. p. ii. p. 106). 

2 Phillips treats this subject in detail, Kirchenrecht, i. § 23, p. 167 
seq. Passaglia, de Ecclesia Christi, lib. iii. c. ix. seq., ¢. xxviii. seq., 
pp- 124 seq., 329 seq. Cf. Alex. Halens, p. 4, q. 49, membr. 6, a. 3, § 2. 
Thom. in 1. iv. sent. d. 19, q.1,a.3,ad 1. Cajetan, t. i. tract. 3, pp. 42, 
43. Dom. a Soto, in 1. iv. d. 20, q.1,a.2. Bellarmin. de Rom. Pontif. 
l. iv. ec. xxv. Petav. de Eccl. Hierarch. 1.i. c. v.; 1. iv. c. vii. Suarez, de 
Fide, disp. 10, sect. 1, n. 4. Pignatelli, Consult. Canon. t.i. cons. 14, 
n. 3 seq. p. 19 seq. Natal. Alexander, H. E. saec. 1, diss. iv. § 4, n. 3, 
ad 3, t. iv. p. 240. Petrus Ballerini, de Potest. Eccles. c. i. § 4, p. 15 seq. 
ed. Monast. Schenkl, Syntagma Jur. Eccles. Salisb. 1786, § 36, note 2. 
Card. Gerdil, Apolog. Compend. del Breve super Soliditate, Opp. ed. 
Rom. xiii. pp. 135,136. Also Pichler, Gesch. der Kirchl, Trennung, ii. 
p. 587 seq. § 6. 

3 Gerdil, Animady. in Febron. posit. xxv. Opp. xiii. 305: ‘ Equidem 
positi sunt episcopi regere Ecclesiam Dei, non ut singuli toti Ecclesiae 
regendae incumberent omniaque munia; quae ad Ecclesiae regimen perti- 
nent, singuli obirent, quod sine perturbatissima confusione fieri non pos- 
set, sed ut singuli eam portionem regerent, quae sibi cuique obtigisset, 
idque non privato cujusque judicio et arbitrio, quod nunquam licuit, sed 
ex legibus, quibus ecclesiastica disciplina continetur, atque ex ejus su- 
premi capitis auctoritate, quam ad continendos in ordine et officio episco- 
pas atque ad unitatis vinculum constringendum prorsus necessariam Bar- 
thelius agnovit.’ Against Sarpi’s theory, vid. Pallavicini, Hist. Conc. 
Trid. 1. vi. c. iii. n. 1 seq.; 1. xii. ¢. iii. n. 1 seq. Cf. also Bolgeni, 
l’Episcopato, t. i. c. vi. art. 3, p. 212 seq. ed. Orvieto, 1837. 

* Gerson, de Potestate Eecles. Opp. ii. p. 238, de Statibus Eccles. 
Consid. 2: ‘Status praelationis episcopalis in Ecclesia quoad sui colla- 
tionem primariam fuit immediate a Christo datus primis Apostolis, sicut 
status papalis Petro, licet postmodum talis collatio fieri potuerit et facta 
sit in successoribus per homines.’ 


Part IJ. How rar Episcopat AUTHORITY IS DERIVED 
IMMEDIATELY FROM Gop. 


§ 1. Distinction between the power of order and the power of jurisdiction. 
§ 2. Jurisdiction received from the Pope; Council of Trent. § 3. 
Formula of preconisation. § 4. Opinion of theologians. § 5. Lainez. 
§ 6. Objections answered. § 7. The appointment of bishops. § 8. 
The Councils of Florence and Basle; authority of the Councils. § 9. 
Bishops not merely advisers, but judges. § 10. Neither the Vatican 
Council nor the Council of Trent has decided whether episcopal juris- 
diction is derived from the Pope or immediately from God. 


176 The Pope and the Bishops. 





§ 1. 

There is a distinction made in the Church between the power 
of order (potestas ordinis) and the power of jurisdiction (potes- 
tas jurisdictionis).1_ The first is conferred by consecration, the 
second by the mere appointment. He who dispenses the power 
of order is only an instrument, but in imparting the power of 
jurisdiction he exercises authority and dominion. The former 
can neither be changed nor lost; the latter can be changed, re- 
stricted, or removed.? If an heretical bishop exercises his power 
of order—that is if he baptises, or ordains, or says Mass—these 
acts are all valid, whilst acts of jurisdiction exercised by such 
a one are invalid,? because the power has been withdrawn from 
him. If, for example, a suspended priest dispenses the Sacra- 
ment of Penance, his absolution is generally invalid, because in 
dispensing the Sacrament of Penance he exercises not merely 
the priestly power, but also the power of jurisdiction, and of 
this his suspension has deprived him. Further, the episcopal 
power of order can exist without the power of jurisdiction, as, 
for example, in the case of a bishop consecrated merely for epis- 
copal acts.* And conversely, jurisdiction can be exercised with- 
out orders, as by a vicar capitular in a vacant see, or by a 
bishop nominated by the Pope, but not yet consecrated.4 

By ecclesiastical laws, by Councils, and by the Pope, the 
power of bishops in the matter of jurisdiction may undergo, and 
has undergone, many changes. But that which is received im- 
mediately from Christ must be abiding and unchangeable. Theo- 
logians teach that the power of order of bishops proceeds im- 
mediately from God ; not so the power of jurisdiction, for this 
it is given to men to confer. Ifthe power of order and the 
power of jurisdiction were indivisible, if the latter were con- 
tained in the former, or both were equal in origin, the power 
of jurisdiction in the case of all bishops must be equal as the 
power of order is equal; there could be no metropolitans or pa- 
triarchs,> and the power of jurisdiction could no more be lost 
than the power of order. The episcopal power of jurisdiction 


* i.e. Confirmation, ordination, and certain blessings, 


Derivation of Episcopal Authority. 177 





is therefore not derived immediately from Christ in so far as it 
exists in individuals; it has been established by Christ, but is 
not conferred immediately by Him upon individual bishops ; 
it is imparted to them by the Head of the Church or bishops 
whom he has authorised. Thus the unity of the episcopate, so 
much insisted on by the Fathers, is fully upheld ; the Holy 
See is head, root, spring, origin of the spiritual authority ;° 
this agrees with the saying of Optatus of Milan and others, 
that St. Peter was given the keys of the kingdom of heaven 
that he might impart them to others. It agrees also with the 
rights of the Head of the Church to judge and remove bishops, 
to found new bishoprics, to divide and unite others, or to increase 
or lessen their power and dignity. 


1 §. Thom. 2, 2, q. 39, a.3, in]. iv.d. 19, q. 1, a. 3. Gerson, de Potest. 
Eccles et Orig. Jur. Opp. ii. 225 seq. Cf. Schwab Gerson, p. 723. Card. 
Gerdil, de plenitudine potestatis episcopalis an et quomodo singulis episco- 
pis tribuenda, Opusce. iii. de Lire; Opp. t. xi. p. 117 seq. 

2 Lainez ap. Pallavic. Le. n. 5, ap. Raynald. a. 1562, n. 124: ‘ Potestas 
igitur ordinis a Deo pendet prout consecratio et est immutabilis. In alia, 
quae jurisdictionis est, occurrit etiam potestas hominis, ideoque variatur 
saepius et auferri potest ab eodem homine non materia solum, sed etiam 
potestas. Et quamvisjurisdictionis omnis in universum auctor sit Deus, 
tamen illam in S. Pontifice tamquam in fonte collocavit, a quo alii omnes 
eam hauriant, sicut dominari animantibus et terrae a Deo est, huic vero 
vel illi loco praesse aliunde hoc dominium pendet aliisque causis adscri- 
bitur.’ According to Salmeron (vide J. B. Andries, Alphonsi Salmeronis 
Doctrina de Jurisdictionis Episcopalis Origine ac Ratione, Mogunt. 1871, 
sect. 1, ¢c. iii. pp. 66, 67) the ‘ potestas ordinis—facultas, qua quis potest 
exequi quosdam actus eminentes in Ecclesia, qui vel simpliciter vel saltem 
ex ordine (ordinarie) non possunt ficria non consecrato’ is contrary to the 
‘potestas jurisdictionis—praelatio quaedam sive guperioritas per quam 
clericus dirigit sibi subditum fidelem in vitam aeternam secundum legem 
divinam vel canonicam per actus quosdam, qui etiam a non consecrato 
exercere possunt.’ Cf. Lainez ap. Pallav. 1. xix. ¢. vi. n. 6 seq. 

3 Gerdil, Lc. p. 118: ‘ Discrimen ex eo petendum, quod sacramenta, 
tametsi hominum ministerio peragantur, vim tamen efficiendi habent a 
Deo, quo fit, ut si quis ordinis potestate pollet, cetera adhibeat, quibus 
sacramenta illa constant, nihil jam impressam a Deo efficientiam cohibere 
valeat. Secus quod attinet ad regimen. Nam etsi episcopatus ad Eccle- 
siae regimen sit a Christo institutus, non ex eo fit, ut quisquis episcopalem 
ordination susceperit, hoc ipso regendi munus explicare valeat. Quid 
enim si haereticus ab haeretico in episcopum ordinatur vel schismaticus 
a schismatico? Quid si Catholicus etiam quod et factum quandoque acce- 
pimus sic ordinatur, ut nulli ecclesiae praeficiatur? Quid si pulsus a 


VOL. I. N 


178 The Pope and the Bishops. 





sede sua episcopus in alienam dioecesim immigraverit, num jure suo in ea 
regendi officium assumet? Quibus plane liquet, potestati ordinis non ita 
cohaerere facultatem regiminis, ut sejungi ab ea nequeat. Cujus rei 
summa haec est, quod ordinis potestas per sese constare potest velut 
absolutum quiddam et perfectum, nec aliud requirit praeter subjectam 
materiam aptam sacramento, in quo vim suam exerat. Contra regiminis 
facultas, ut et omnis praefectura, in eorum genere est, quae referuntur 
seque habent ad aliud extrinsecum quod nisi adsit, nec illa esse aut intel- 
ligi possunt, velut nec pater esse aut intelligi potest, cui non sit filius, 
aut dominus, qui servum, aut patronus qui clientem non habeat.’ 

+ Bouix, Tract. de Principiis Juris Canon. p. iv. c. ili. § 2, p. 425 seq. 
ed. Monast. 1853. The Faculty of Cologne censured in 1618 this pro- 
position of M. A. de Dominis—‘ Quando aufertur tota jurisdictio indigno 
.... tune respondeo etiam ordinem auferri’—as a ‘ propositio plus quam 
falsa et haeretica’ (Du Plessis, t. iii. p. ii. p. 210). 

5 Gerdil, 1c, pp. 123, 124: ‘Sed ex ipsa remotiori antiquitate solidior 
quaedam suboritur consideratio, quam et ipse Thomassinus opportune 
attingit....Clamant se. adversarii, episcopos Apostolorum successores 
esse idqne....concedimus. At remoto Petro pares certe planeque ae- 
quales ceteri fuere Apostoli nec unus aut plures etiam praerogativam 
ullam sibi arrogare poterant aut vindicare, vi cujus alterum quempiam 
obstrictam sibi aut ullo gradu inferiorem haberent. Igitur et episcopi, 
quatenus Apostolorum successores vi episcopalis ordinationis, quam ae- 
qualem omnes perinde suscipiunt, in pari aequalitatis gradu constinuntur, 
unus parque in omnibus episcopatus, ut nil plus juris uni quam alteri 
episcopalis ordinatio tribuere valeat. Unde ergo graduum distinctio, vi 
cujus, prout ab Eeclesiae primordiis factum est, unus episcopus plaribus 
aliis episcopis quocunque tandem nomine praesideret? Non ajure divino: 
quippe ordo episcopatus, ut ipsimet sentiunt, unus est et par in omnibus. 
Non abuniversali consilio : quippe longe jam ante invaluerat ea distinctio, 
quam de cogendo universali consilio cogitaretur. Non a provincialibus sy- 
nodis : quippe provinciarum distinctionem antecedere debuit ipsa graduum 
distinctio, qua unus in definita quadam regione ceteris ejusdem provinciae 
episcopis praeesset. Non ex pacto convento inter nonnullos episcopos, 
quibus commodum visum esset hanc hierarchiae formam instituere: nam 
nec isti minuere poterunt aut alii subjicere auctoritatem sibi divinitus 
tributam, nec praeter divinam institutum alterius cujusvis auctoritatem 
amplificare, aliunde nec successoribus eam legem praescribere potuissent, 
cui se ipsi sua voluntate subjecissent. Sed jam redeat providum in fun- 
danda Ecclesia divinae sapientiae consilium, omnis evanescit obscuritas 
atque aperta se prodit quaesitae distinct onis origo. Chr. videl cum uno 
instituendo episcopatu pares potestate ordinis episcopos omnes esse voluit, 
unum tamen velut supremum caput in potestate regiminis ceteris omnibus 
praetulit. Hine facile intelligitur, qaemadmodum ex hoc apostolicae ca- 
thedrae principatu tamquam primario fonte superioris hujusce auctoritatig 
jura Pountificio instituto in alias sedes cum temporata discretione po- 
testatis manaverint factumque sit, ut hac inducta graduum inter anti- 
atites aptissima distributione ecclesiastica hierarchia ordinatissimam cas- 
trorum spiritualium formam, speciemque praeseferret.’ St. Thomas, 1. ii. 


Derivation of Episcopal A uthor ity. 179 





sent. d. ult. q. ult. says briefly: ‘Ab ipso Papa gradis dignitatum et dis- 
ponuntur et ordinantur. Unde ejus potestas est quoddam Ecclesiae fun- 
damentum, ut partet ex Matth. xvi. 18.’ 

* Benedict XIV. cites the Epistle of Innocent I., ad Episc. Carthag. 
Concil. (Hard. i. 1025) n. 1, in which he praises the bishops as ‘scientes 
quid debeatur Apostolicae Sedi; cum omnes hoc loco positi ipsum sequi 
desideremus Apostolum (Petrum) a quo ipse episcopatus et tota auctoritas 
nominis hujus emersit.’ Also the Ep. ad Victric. 2, n. 2, and before him 
Siricius, Ep. 5, ad Epise. Afric.: ‘per quem et Apostolatus et episcopatus 
in Christo coepit exordium.’ The African bishops wrote to Pope Theodore 
(Hard. iii. 734) that the Holy See was the ‘fons, de quo rivuli prodeunt 
affluenter, universum longissime irrigantes orbem Christianorum.’ Leo 
the Great says with even greater clearness, Ep. 10,ad Episc. Prov. Vienn. 
e.i. (ce. vii. d.19): ‘ Hujus muneris sacramentum ita Dominus ad omnium 
Apostolorum officium pertinere voluit, ut in beatissimo Petro Apostolorum 
omnium summo principaliter collocarit, ut ab ipso, quasi quodam capite, dona 
sua velit in corpus omne manare, ut exsortem se mysterii intelligeret esse 
divini, qui ausus fuisset a Petri soliditate recedere.’ Benedict remarks on 
these words: ‘Idque eo sapientissimo consilio a Christo D. factum existi- 
mat.’ D. Thomas, l. iv. c. gent.c. Ixxvi.: ‘Ut hoe continuo et quasi perenni 
influxu jurisdictionis a capite in membra firmior et solidior esset omnium 
cum illo, nexus et, melius conservaretur unitas Ecclesiae. Soli, ait Ange- 
lieus, n. 4, loguens de Christi promissione facta Petro, promisit: Tibi 
dabo claves regni coelorum, ut ostenderetur potestas clavium per eum ad 
alios derivanda ad conservandam Ecclesiae unitatem.’ The same argu- 
ments as those of Benedict are used by St. Bonavent. Opusc. Quare 
fratres minores praedicent, Opp. t. vii.p. 340, ed. Lugd. 1668. Bellarm. 
1. iv. de Rom. Pont. ¢. xxiv. et xxv. Vargas, in toto opere de jurisdictione 
episcoporum. Suarez, de Leg. iv. 4 p. tot. Fagnan. in c. Perniciosam, 
n. 20, usque ad finem, tit. de off. ordin. We may also cite the words of 
Leo the Great, Serm. iv. de Natal. ips. c. ii.: Petrus ‘ab ipso omnium 
charismatum fonte tam copiosis est irrigationibus inundatus, ut, cum 
multa solus acceperit, nihil in quemquam sine ipsius participatione tran- 
sierit .... si quid cum eo commuue ceteris voluit esse principibus, num- 
quam nisi per ipsum dedit quod aliis non negavit.’ Cf. ib.c.iv. Here 
also St. Cyprian’s words, de Unit. Eccl. c. ii., may be referred to, where 
it is said, with regard to a quotation from St. Matt. xvi. 18 seq. and 
St. John xx. 21 seq.: ‘Super unum aedificat Ecclesiam . .. . ut unitatem 
manifestaret, unitatis ejusdem originem ab uno incipientem sua auctori- 
tate disposuit.’ Cf. Ep. 73, ad Jubajan.; Ep. 55, ad Cornel. Also the 
words of the Fathers of Aquileja, 381, Ep. ad Imp. Constant. p. 554: 
‘Inde enim (ab Ecclesia Romana, totius orbis capite) et in omnes vene- 
randae communionis jura dimanant.’ 


§ 2. 
If episcopal jurisdiction were not derived immediately from 
the Pope, it must come from Christ in the act of the consecra- 
tion of a bishop, or from Christ in some other act external to 


180 The Pope and the Bishops. 





the act of consecration, or fromm some other source. But none 
of these can be asserted. Not the first, since before his conse- 
cration the bishop elect may (as soon as his election has been 
confirmed by the Pope) exercise the power of jurisdiction. Not 
the second, for there is no other act besides the act of consecra- 
tion by which any power is conferred immediately from Christ 
upon the bishop ; such an act would have to be clearly indicated. 
Lastly, the supposition of any other source would be contrary 
to the Catholic faith. Although formerly the bishops were 
chosen by the people, whose choice was confirmed by the higher 
bishops (metropolitans, primates, patriarchs), the choice of the 
people conferred no power, and the higher prelates were not ap- 
pointed immediately from God, but held their power from the 
Church, and in particular from the Holy See.!’ Thus episcopalh 
jurisdiction can spring directly only from the Pope. 

The Council of Trent has spoken on this point. It declares 
that a bishop can be a true bishop only if he has received the 
requisite consecration and mission from ecclesiastical authority. 
Mere election by the people or by the civil power or self-in- 
vestiture of the office makes a man not a pastor and servant of 
the Church, but a thief and a robber that entereth not by the 
door? (John x. 1). On the other hand, according to the same 
Council, those are true bishops who have been appointed by the 
Roman Pontiff. Thus the mission of a bishop proceeds from 
the Fope; it is not merely the assignment to him of a certain 
dominion, of a diocese, but the act by which actual jurisdiction 
is conferred and subjects with certain rights and duties placed 
under him. The form and manner of doing this may have varied 
at different times ; but the act of appointment can never have 
been lawful if the Holy See rejected it, and did not agree to it 
either expressly or tacitly.+ 


1 On this subject, Leo M. Ep. i4, ad Anastas. Thessalon. ¢. xi. says : 
‘Cum omnium (Apostolorum) par esset electio, uni tamen datum est, ut 
ceteris praeemineret. De qua forma episcoporum quoque est orta dis- 
tinctio, et magna ordinatione provisum est, ne omnes sibi omnia vindi- 
carent, sed essent in singulis provinciis singuli, quorum inter fratres. 
haberetur prima sententia, et rursus quidam in majoribus urbibus consti- 
tuti sollicitudinem susciperent ampliorem, per quos ad unam Petri sedem 


Derwation of Episcopal Authority. 181 


universalis Ecclesiae cura conflueret et nihil unquam a suo capite dis- 
sideret.’ 

2 Trid. Sess. xxiii. de Ord. cap. iv. et can. 7. 

3 Tb. can. 8. Cf, Pallav. 1. xxi. ec, x. n. 4. 

4 Gerdil, le. p. 127: ‘Ad jurisdictionem requiritur subjectae plebis 
assignatio, quae fit non divino, sed humano jure. MHujusce porro assig- 
nationis via et ratio, etsi diversis locis ac temporibus pro diversitate dis- 
ciplinae varia quandoque fuerit, nulla tamen legitima esse potuit, quae 
Sedi Apostolicae probata non sit, ex cujus consensione pro plenitudine 
potestatis per universam Ecclesiam sese fundentis vim roburque acce- 
perit.’ Cf. Thomassin, p. ii. 1. i. ¢. xlvii. n. 3: ‘ Episcopi obtinent illi 
quidem immediate a Christo jurisdictionem suam’ (which he endeavours 
to establish, p. i. 1. i. c. 1. n. 1 seq.), ‘sed non ab illo immediate consecuti 
sunt territorium hoc suum et peculiarem dioecesim, cum hacc partito facta 
fuerit ab Ecclesia volventibus saeculis nec fieri potuerit aut perpetuari, 
nisi consensione capitis, in quo est cardo et centrum eccles. unitatis.’ 


§ 3. 


This is quite in accordance with the formula used for the 
preconisation of bishops, in which by virtue of the power of God, 
of the Prince of the Apostles, and of the ruling Pope,' those 
elected or nominated are confirmed by him ; they are appointed 
to sees and intrusted with the care and administration of them 
in spiritual and temporal matters. Also in accordance with this 
is the similarity of the jurisdiction of the ordained priest, who 
after his ordination must be approved, that is, have faculties 
given him, by the bishop before he can absolve. He who can 
withdraw power must have the right of conferring it.2 The 
Pope may remove bishops; he must also be empowered to appoint 
them. 


1 The words in the Caeremoniale Romanum are: ‘ Auctoritate omni- 
potentis Dei et b. Apostolorum Petri ct Pauli ac nostra providemus Eccle- 
siae N. de persona dilecti filii N.N., praeficientes illi Ecclesiae in 
episcopum et pastorem, curam et administrationem illius Ecclesixe in 
spiritualibus et temporalibus eidem plenarie committendo in nomine Pa- 
tris,’ &c.: or, ‘ electionem de persona dilecti filii N.N. electi ad ecclesiam 
N. canonice factam confirmamus et approbamus, praeficientes eum illi 
Ecclesiae in episcopum,’ &c. 

2 Reg. J. V.41, c. i.: ‘Omnis res, per quascunque causas nascitur, per 
easdem dissolvitur.’ 

§ 4. 


Before the Council of Trent this opinion was predominant 
in the schools amongst both the secular and regular clergy, and 


182 The Pope and the Bishops. 





throughout Christendom.! The supporters of the contrary opin- 
ion were fewer ; they differed much amongst themselves, and 
were more or less near to the other view. It was discussed at 
the Council of Trent whether the jurisdiction of bishops was de- 
rived immediately from Christ or from the Pope. Benedict XIV. 
declared that the latter opinion was more in accordance with 
reason and authority. At Trent the majority of the bishops ex- 
pressed themselves of the opinion that episcopal jurisdiction 
comes from the Pope. The prelates who opposed this started 
from various points of view. 


' Amongst its supporters are: 1. Alexander of Hales. 2. Albertus M. 
3. St. Bonaventure. 4. St.Thomas. 5. Richard de Mediavilla. 6. Duns 
Scotus. 7. Durand a St. Porciano. 8. Hervaus Natalis. 9. Petrus de 
Palude. 10. Alexander a St. Elpidio, 11. Augustine Triumphus. 12. 
John Bacon of England, the passages from Andries Salmeronis, Doctrina, 
pp. X.-xii. 112-117. 13. Alvarus Pelagius, De Planctu Eccl. i. c. lviii. ; 
Rocecab. Bibl. m. Pont. iii. 166. 14. Aegidius Romanus, Opusce. c. Hxemt. 
c. ii.; Episecopos per Pontificem vel per Auctoritatem ejus assumtos in 
Partem sollicitudinis, Lib. de Renune. Pap.c. viii. 15. Simon Fidatus de 
Cassia. 16. Thomas de Argentina. 17. Petrus Bertrandus. 18. Thomas 
Waldensis. 19. John of Capistran. 20. Vincens Ferrerius. 21. John 
Cappreolus. 22. John Turrecremata. 23. St.Antonin. 24. Laurentius. 
Justiniani. 25. Dionysius Carthus. 26. Hieronymus Savonarola. 27 
George Scolarius. 28. Gabriel Biel, Andries, pp. xi.-xiii. 117, 118. 29. 
Card. Cajetan. 30. Alphons. Tostatus, ib. pp. 117, 118. 31. Sylvester 
Prierias, De Juridica et Ivrefrag. Verit. Rom. Eccl. Roccab. xix. 235 seq. 
246. 32. Stanislaus Hosius. 33. Reginald Pole. 34. Thomas Campeg- 
gius. 35. Caspar Contareni. 36. William Lindanus. 37. Robert Ar- 
boricensis. 88. John Faber. 39. John Fisher. 40. Nicholas Sander. 
41. John of Louvain. 42. Driedo. 43. Jacob Latomus. 44. Thomas 
Stapleton. 45. John Eck, Andries, c. pp. xvii. xxviii.118. 46. Abraham 
Bzovius. 47. Balth.Nardus. 48. BaldwinJunius. 49. J. Gretser. 50. 
Fr. Macedo. 51. Fragosa. 52. Dom Maria Marchese. 53. Angelus Pe- 
trica. 54. Boverius. 55. Petrus Labat. 56. Vincent Ferre, 0.S.D. 57.. 
Em. Schelstrate, Pichler, ii. pp. 705-707. 58. Salmeron. 59. Vargas. 
60. Maucler. 61. Canus. 62. Dominicus a Soto. 63. Bannez. 64. Blo- 
sius. 65. Duval. 66. John a Celaja. 67. Charlas. 68. Coeffeteau. 69. 
Barthol. Urbinas, O.S.A. 70. Peregrin. Nasellus of Padua. 71. Malder. 
72. Lainez. 73. Suarez. 74. Bellarmine. 75. Gregory of Valencia. 76. 
Franciscus Amicus. 77. Petavius, Andries, p. xix. seq 118. 78. Muzza- 
relli. 79. Bennettis. 80. Viator a Cocaleo, ib. p.xxii. 81. Benedict XIV. 
82. Card. Vincent Petra, t. ii. Comment. in Const. ap. Const. 4, Innoc. III. 
n, 35, 36, p. 118 seq.: ‘In hoc dicitur quod jurisdictio absoluta et in se 
considerata sit immediate a Christo quoad vero jurisdictionem in actu 
secundo seu assignationem subditorum a summo Pontifice, vel, at com- 


Derivation of Episcopal Authority. . 183 





munius dicunt, quoad ordinem immediate a Deo episcopalis potestas 
quoad jurisdictionem vero a Papa.’ 83. Prosper Fagnanus, in c. i. Per- 
niciosam, i. 31, n. 30 seq. 84. Kilber, Theol. Wirceb. t. i. p. 469-476, 
tract. i. disp. ii. c. iii. a. 3, n. 180 seq. 85. Schmalzgrueber, in lib. i. De- 
cret. tit. 31, § 4, n. 26. 86. Reiffenstuel (in a. 1. § 3, n. 69 seq.), who 
quotes also Pirrhing, Sannig, Engel, and others. 87. Phillips, K.R. ii. 
§ 76, pp. 132-135, coll. i. § 13, p. 96, v. § 221, p. 363 seq., where reference 
is also made to Bolgeni, l’Episcopato, p. i. c. vii.n.81l seq. 88. Westhoff, 
not. in Petri Baller. Vindic. Potest. Pontif. c. v. p. 184, ed Monast. 1847. 
89. Beidtel, Das Canon. Recht, p. 523 seq. 90. Maaszen, Der Primat des 
Bischofs von Rom. Bonn, 1853, p. 138, n. 4. 


§ 5. 


The General of the Jesuits, Lainez, in his speech at Trent, 
argues the point in detail. The power of order, he says, is 
received by individuals always immediately from God. The 
power of jurisdiction is received immediately from God only in 
certain instances, as in the case of St. Peter and his successors 
and the Apostles collectively ;} but in the case of other bishops 
it is received immediately from the Pope, who can change and 
limit their jurisdiction. What God willed to be abiding and 
unchanged He effected Himself; but He has ordained persons 
and instruments to effect those things which should be subject 
to change. The Pope, says Lainez, when he gives to a pastor 
the sheep to feed, gives him also authority over them. Juris- 
diction exists before consecration. As all bishops are consecrated. 
alike,® all would, if the jurisdiction came from the consecration, 
enjoy it equally. If the bishops derived immediately from 
God their jurisdiction limited to certain places, as the jurisdic- 
tion of bishops is limited, it would follow as a consequence that 
the partition of dioceses was divine also, so that the Pope could 
neither extend nor circumscribe them. if on the contrary the 
bishops received from God their jurisdiction not confined to any 
particular place, it would extend over the whole earth, and there 
would be as many Popes as bishops. If it is said that Christ 
confers jurisdiction upon the bishops, and the Popes allow of 
its exercise, this is ascribing to our Lord the conferring of an 
incomplete and inoperative authority. Either the words ‘ Feed 
My sheep’ are only addressed to St. Peter and his successors, in 


ee The ee and the Boshops. 





which case these may be seecaed as the source of all Siac: 
tion ; or they apply to all bishops, and then it becomes untrue 
to say that the object of this jurisdiction was assigned to the 
Pope for distribution ; and the unity of the Church is broken. 


1 This is a point of controversy, for many assert that jurisdiction was 
conferred upon the Apostles by Christ ‘ per Petrum.’ Salmeron, Andries, 
op. cit. sect. 1, c. iv. p. 72 seq. 

2 Pallavic. |. xviii. c.xv.n. 8,4. Rayn. d. 1562, n.124. Salmeron treats 
in detail the distinction between the wide and narrow sense of the jus 
divinum. Cf. J.B. Andries, Alphonsi Salmeronis Doctrina, Mogunt. 1871, 
sect. 1, ¢. i. ii. pp. 5-56. 

3 §. Bonavent. in 1. iv. sent. d. 24, q. 3. S. Thom. Sum. 2, 2, q. 29, 
in 1. iv. d. 24, can. Ita Dominus, dist. 19. 

4 Raynald. l.c.; Pallavic. lc. n. 5, 6. 

5 Pallavic. l.c. n. 15-17. Salmeron (Andries, Le. p. 90 seq.) argues 
upon the text, John xxi. 15 seq. thus: ‘Si omnes Christi oves Petro sunt 
assignatae, ut ab eo tamquam Christi vicario pascerentur ac gubernaren- 
tur, efficitur, ut quicunque determinatas aliquas pascendas habeat oves, 
nonnisi per illum earum pascendarum curam debeat assumere. Neque 
enim dubium est quin mitteret falcem in messem alienam qui absque ejus 
auctoritate pasceret oves fidei suae non creditas.’ 


§ 6. 


Objections were made to the view held by Lainez, which he 
also answered. One objection was: ‘The Apostles receive their 
jurisdiction immediately from Christ. Therefore, as successors 
of the Apostles, the bishops also receive their jurisdiction im- 
mediately from Christ.’ To the premise Lainez fully agreed, 
although others, such as Salmeron, held that jurisdiction was 
conferred upon the Apostles by Christ through St. Peter; but 
he denied the conclusion. It might be no less logically argued : 
Adam’s body was created immediately by God; therefore so 
also are the bodies of his descendants. The bishops are not 
successors of the Apostles in every relation, and with exactly 
equal rights. The Church never recognised in the bishops of 
Antioch and Ephesus that supreme power enjoyed by the 
Apostles Peter and John who at first were placed over them. 
When the Church had been established and regulated by the 
Apostles, the extraordinary powers of the apostolic age were 
no longer necessary to her. The Pope alone has inherited th 


Derivation of Episcopal Authority. 185 





supreme authority of St. Peter in a manner in which no other 
bishop has inherited the power of any other of the Apostles.! 

To the cbjection, that according to St. Basil and St. Ambrose 
the words ‘ Feed My sheep’? were spoken to all the Apostles, 
and therefore were to be referred to all bishops,? Lainez re- 
plied: Doubtless the words were spoken to all the Apostles ; 
but in St. Peter alone. Ifthe words were to be understood as 
being addressed primarily and directly to all the Apostles, the 
primacy would be denied, which is heresy. St. Peter in- 
deed was unable to rule the Church by himself; he had need 
of the other Apostles ; but he was not subject to them ; they 
were not to be his pastors—to feed him. Holy Scripture too 
shows that the jurisdiction of bishops was limited (1 Peter v. 2 ; 
Tit. i. 5). Finally, there may be many degrees of the oftice 
of pastor, as Christ, in a far higher sense than His Apostles, feeds 
His flock and is its Shepherd (John x. 11-14). 

The words (Matt. xviii. 18) in which our Lord conferred 
upon His Apostles the power of binding, of loosing, and those 
(John xx. 22)in which He imparts to them the Holy Ghost for 
the remission of sins, apply of course to the Apostles and their 
successors. But to say the power of jurisdiction, like the power 
of order, was by these words granted equally to St. Peter and the 
other Apostles, is to assert the equality of all the Apostles and 
to deny the primacy. It may be said that these words convey 
the power of order as far as conferring the sacramental absolu- 
tion is concerned, without the full power of external jurisdic- 
tion. If, however, they refer to jurisdiction at all, it is to a 
jurisdiction to be imparted at some future time. When Christ 
spoke these words He had only promised, not yet instituted, the 
primacy. ‘This was the answer given by Lainez to a third ob- 
jection. To a fourth he replied as follows: 

Although bishops were appointed by the Holy Ghost (Acts 
xx. 28) to rule the Church of God, it does not follow that the 
Holy Ghost should directly appoint each individual to this or 
that particular see.> A reference to the parable (Matt. xxiv. 45) 
in which a bishop is called a faithful and wise servant whom 
the Lord hath appointed over His family, because these words 


186 The Pope and the Bishops. 





are used in the consecration service, proves nothing. It suffices 
for the parable and its interpretation that the bishop is placed 
by God, whether mediately or immediately, over His family. 
An objection is made: ‘ That according to 1 Tim. iii. 5, the 
episcopate and the authority to govern are inseparably con- 
nected, and that to govern is the same thing as to have jurisdic- 
tion. But in this passage St. Paul does not say whether the 
power of order and the power of jurisdiction can or cannot be 
separated. -Neither does he say whether the bishop’s power of 
jurisdiction be imparted directly by God; neither does he indi- 
cate the source whence it proceeds. He speaks merely of the 
qualifications necessary for him to whom it is intrusted. 
Granted that some of the Fathers, such as St. Ambrose, St. 
Basil, and St. Leo, say that bishops and their authority are from 
God, they nowhere say that this authority is in all its parts and 
immediately from God.® Other Fathers say that on the con- 
trary it is derived from the Roman Pontiff. Either the Fathers 
in this contradict one another—a supposition neither well 
grounded nor reverent—or we are to understand them to mean 
that episcopal jurisdiction is derived from God through the Pope.* 
St. Bonaventure’ and St. Thomas9 taught this doctrine, and among 
the Fathers, Leo the Great!® and Gregory the Great,!! the latter 
of whom refused the title of universal bishop, calling it unright- 
eous,!? but only in the sense imputed to it by the present oppo- 
nents of the Vatican Council, namely, that of being strictly speak- 
ing the sole bishop.13_ The Pope is bishop in his See of Rome, 
and must therefore leave their sees to the other bishops. He is, 
however, also bishop of the Universal Church; as such he can 
investigate and pass judgment upon all matters of ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction ; but he has not the right causelessly to withdraw 
from bishops the authority which they lawfully possess.1! He 
is justly called Bishop of the Catholic, that is of the Universal 
Church,! a title which occurs in the Bull of ratification of the 
Council of Trent, issued in 1564 by Pius IV.; also previously 
in the diplomas of Alexander III., a.p. 1162 and 1169, and as 
early as 1131 inthe Privilegium granted by Innocent II. to St. 
Bernard. Gregory the Great, in opposition to Byzantine 


Derivation of Episcopal Authority. 187 





pride, took the titie of Servant of the servants of God 
(Servus servorum Dei),!7 but without intending to merge the 
dignity of his office in the humility of the appellation ;}§ he only 
refused the title of ‘ecumenical’ Pope or Patriarch in the sense in 
which he understood it. He called it blasphemous when assumed 
by the Patriarch of Constantinople, whose throne had already 
been occupied by many heretics, and who took to himself what 
the Roman Pontiff was not willing to accept.!’ The title of 
‘universal bishop’ was of frequent occurrence as early as the 
eighth century.2° In 1413 the Faculty of Paris rejected the pro- 
position of Huss that the Pope was not universal bishop ;?! and 
the theologians of Alcala in 1564 rejected the proposition, ‘ the 
Pope is not to be styled universal bishop, since St. Gregory re- 
fused and abhorred the title,’ as a proposition bordering upon 
heresy ; whilst they clearly prove that Gregory the Great re- 
jected the title in another meaning, not in the sense of his 
having power over the whole Church.??_ The Faculty of Paris 
in 1565, and that of Cologne in 1617, acted in a similar man- 
ner. Here again the weapons of old heretics are used to tight 
the battle of a new heresy. 

1 Pallavic. l.c.n. 9. Lainez lays down the rule: ‘ Non requiritur in 
subrogato natura illius, cui subrogatur, nisi secundum id quod satis est.’ 
Cf. Salmeron, l.c. pp. 91, 92. 

2M. A. de Dominis asserted, 1. i. ¢. vili.n. 3: ‘Quod uni Petro et 
seorsum dicitur : Pasce oves meas mysterium tantum est, ut discant omnes 
Apostoli et ministri Christi, etiamsi sint innumerabiles unicam tamen 
omnes et eamdem exercere pasturam et omnes simul ac in solidum unicum 
eos debere esse pastorem.’ The Faculty of Cologne censured this prcpo- 
sition as ‘ propositio haerctica et Scripturae violenta expositio’ (Du Plessis, 
t. iii. p. ii. p. 198). 

% The testimony of these and ‘other Fathers is cited in detail by Sal- 
meron, l.c. sect. ii. c. v. pp. 154-159. 

4 Pallavic. lc. n. 7. 

5 It is certainly concluding too much if from similar texts from Serip- 
ture and passages from the Fathers (such as St. Ignatius, St. Basil, St. 
Chrysostom, Theodoret) without further inquiry the following conclusion 
is arrived at: ‘Est igitur episcoporum potestas immediate a Christo. 
Nihil ergo moror eorum argutias qui controversias, non solum contra 
haereticos, sed etiam contra orthodoxos plerumque tractant. Phrasim 
Scripturae loquor et SS. Patrum.’ Also Isaac Habert, Archieraticon gr. 


Paris, 1676, ad p. vii. Lit. Obsery. 4, p. 87, who beyond this adds: ‘ Im- 
probus autem sit veterator, quisquis ex eo calumniabitur nos 8. Pontificis 


188 The Pope and the Bishops. 





supra omnes episcopos divinitus institutam potestatem labefactare, quum 
illam eo firmius stabiliusque fundatam profiteamur quo apertius exponi- 
mus, institutos ab ipso Christo immediate ceteros episcopos hac lege 
divinoque jure, ut Petri sese subordinatos ac subditos intelligant.’ 

6 For particulars on this point vide Salmeron, l.c. sect. ii. ¢. vi. pp. 
168-173, 177-179. 

7 Pallavic. l.c. n. 12. 

8 Bonavent. Breviloq. P. vi. c. xii. p. 250, ed. Hefele, iii.: ‘Qui Papa 
merito appellatur, tamquam unus primus et summus pater spiritualis 
omnium patrum imo (pastor in ed. Ven.) omnium fidelium et hierarcha 
praecipuus sponsus unicus, caput indivisum, Pontifex summus Christi 
vicarius, fons et origo, regula cunctorum principatuum ecclesiasticorum « 
quo tamquam a summo derivatur ordinata potestas usque ad infirma Ke- 
clesiae membra, secundum quod exigit praecellens dignitas in ecclesiastica 
hierarchia.’ 

® §. Thom. in]. iv. sent. d. 24, q. 3, a. 2. Durand. Comment. in 1. iv. 
d. 24, q. 5. 

10 Vide passages cited, § 1, note 6, and § 2, note 1, supra. 

1 Greg. M. ad Joh. Subd. 1. ii. Ep. 30 (c. x. d. 63) : ‘Quanto Apostolica 
sedes Deo auctore cunctis praelata constat ecclesiis, tanto inter multiplices 
curas et ila nos valde sollicitat, ubi ad consecrandum antistitem nostrum 
expectatur arbitrium.’ 

2 Greg. M. 1. v. Ep. 18, 19, 20 seq. 1. vii. Ep. 30, and elsewhere. 


13 Cf. Salmeron, l.c. pp. 196,197. Thomassin, p.i. 1. ic. xi. Bal- 
Jerini, I.c.¢. iii, n. 11, p. 174. 
4Pallavie: eine 313: 


18 Pallavic, 1. xix. c. xv. n.3. Further transactions, ib. 1. xxi. c. iv. 
n. 12 seq. 


16 Bern. Ep. 352, Migne, clxxxii. p. 556. 
Joh. Diac. Vita Greg. M. 1. ii. ¢. i. 
18 Greg. M. 1. ix. Ep. 59. 
Greg. M. 1. iv. Ep. 32, ad Mauric. Imp. 

20 Cod. Carolin. Ep. 15, p. 143, ed. Cenni. 

21 Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. xv. et xvi. c. ii. art. 3, n. 6, t. xvii. p. 167. 
The Sorbonne used it in the year 1388. Du Plessis, t. i. p. ii. p. 85. 

2 Du Plessis, t. iii. p. ii. pp. 105-107. 

3 Tbid. t. iii. p. ii. p. 194, n. 6. 


§ 7. 

It was supposed that the strongest argument against Lainez 
was that the doctrine he upheld was unknown for the first ten 
centuries, and that during that time there was no trace of any 
interposition on the part of the Pope with regard to the making 
of bishops.!_ But his interposition is shown in the action of 
provincial bishops, archbishops, and others.?_ No one has main- 
tained that each bishop was appointed immediately by the 


Derwation of Episcopal Authority. 189 





Pope. The Pope certainly exercised authority over the patri- 
archs of the East ;° the jurisdiction of these patriarchs was in 
every case derived from Peter. In many countries the Popes 
exercised a great deal of their authority through their vicars- 
apostolic, the primates and other hierarchs who in their name 
appointed and confirmed bishops,® whilst in other countries, 
as in Italy for example, the appointment was made directly. 
In countries where heresy was predominant the Popes inter- 
fered personally. Thus Martin [. in 649 gave Bishop John of 
Philadelphia, by virtue of the supreme power conferred upon: 
him by Christ through St. Peter, authority in the patriarchate of 
Antioch and Jerusalem, as legate extraordinary of the Holy See,. 
to appoint bishops, priests, and deacons.’ The bishops originally 
consecrated by the Apostles had through these their jurisdiction 
from Christ Himself; the archbishops, who in earlier times ap- 
pointed the bishops, had received their authority with the con- 
sent of the Pope, who had conferred upon them the pallium. 
The appointment of lawful bishops has always been made with 
the consent of the Pope, either expressed or understood ; that is 
the appointment has always proceeded immediately or mediately 
- from him.§ 

In the West the Pope was the only patriarch, and almost 
all the greater Churches were founded by him—for instance 
the German Church, the Hungarian, the Scandinavian, the 
English, and others—and amongst the patriarchal rights were in- 
cluded those of consecrating, or causing to be consecrated, the 
bishops, or at least the archbishops. The intermediate steps 
between the Pope and the bishops are to be regarded as so many 
copies of St. Peter’s privileges,? and only from its connection 
with the Holy See could every mode of appointment not pro- 
ceeding from the Holy See be lawfully possible. The ancient 
mode of proceeding did not neutralise, but rather presupposed, 
the divine right of the Pope ; and was besides capable of altera- 
tion as soon as the needs of the Church required it, as we have 
seen in a special manner since the decline of the power of 
metropolitans.!° To say that St. Peter was only primus intev 
pares, is to deny altogether the primacy. 


190 The Pope and the Bishops. 





1 Bossuet, Defens. Decl. Cleri. Gall. p. iii. 1. viii. c. xi. p. 95; c. xv. 


p. 105. Schenkl, Syntagma, § 37, not. 2,n. 3. 
2 Thomassin, P. i. 1.1. ¢. liv. n. 5 seq.; ¢. lv. n. 1 seq.; P. ii. 1. ii. 


c. i, Beq. 

3 Dollinger, Lehrbuch der K. G.i. p. 183 seq. Bianchi, t. iii. 1.i. ¢. ii. 
§ 2, p. 1 seq. 

4 Thomassin, P. i. 1]. i. c. vii. n. 11 seq.; ¢. viii. n. 1 seq. Charlas, de 
Libert. Eccl. Gall. 1. viii. ¢. iii. iv. Selvaggio, Antiqu.1.i.c. xvii. prop. 4, 
u. 23 seq. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, ii. § 69, p. 30 seq. 

5 Coustant, Praef. in Ep. Rom. Pont. n. 22 seq. p. xviii. seq. Tho- 


massin, l.c. c. xxx. seq. ; 1. ii. ¢. evii. seq. 

6 Numerous proofs exist in the Briefs of Gregory the Great, for ex- 
ample: 1. ii. Ep. 30, 31, 35; 1. iii. Ep. 26; can. 23, c. xvi. q. 1; cap. vi. 
de Praesumpt. ii. 23. 

7 Martin. i. Ep. 5. Dollinger, lc. pp. 188, 189. The Faculty of Co- 
logne in 1618 expressed themselves against M. A. de Dominis, who (I. iii. 


® Salmeron, l.c. p. 187 seq. For particulars vide Phillips, K. R. v. 
§ 221 seq. p. 361 seq. 

> Thomassin, ¥:.45 0.4, C)ix: n:d2':e: xxvilon..53) eal.¢; vill. m./ = 
eA CaxiVeaD: Ass, Pedicsle gi. Cela ne 19) 

10 Phillips, l.c. p. 366 seq. 


58: 


The appeal to the Councils of Constance and Basle, accord. 
ing to which the bishops assembled at a General Council derive 
their power immediately from God, proves nothing ; for (1) the 
decision of the Council of Constance can only refer to the case 
ofa great schism ;! (2) these decrees have none of the authority 
of ecumenical definitions ;2 (3) moreover, it is not the same thing 
to say: ‘The Council has authority immediately from God ; 
and to say, ‘ Individual bishops have their authority immedi- 
ately froin God.’3 A true Ecumenical Council is a Council in 
union with the Pope. It derives its authority immediately from 
Christ. Without the Pope it is not an Ecumenical Council, 
and has no universal authority. It seems to follow from this 
again that the Pope alone derives his jurisdiction immediately 
from Christ; and that the bishops do not, because separated 
from the Pope they cannot compose a General Council. 

We must remember to keep these two questions quite dis- 
tinct: first, whether General Councils are convened and held 
by divine authority ; and second, whether the authority of their 


Derivation of Episcopal Authority. 191 





decrees and the power which they exercise are derived imme- 
diately from God. 

To the first question theologians reply in the negative.* 
There is no divine command for General Councils. Many 
centuries have passed in which none were held, and if they 
were an essential part of the constitution ordained by Christ 
for the Church they would not have been left without care, 
their taking place would not be dependent upon external cir- 
cumstances. The constitution of the Church is not an aristo- 
cracy, but a monarchy ; the Pope above the bishops is the head 
of a General Council, which is not conceivable without him.6 
But with the decrees of a General Council it is another matter : 
their authority comes from God ; the Council only arrives at 
its decision with the assistance of the Holy Ghost; to it apply 
the words (Acts xv. 28), ‘It hath seemed good to the Holy 
Ghost and to us.’ But the authority of the Pope and of the 
Council is really one and the same.? The gift ofinfallibility is 
imparted to the Church by its visible Head. And the Church 
is not infallible, save in union with the Pope. The Council 
possesses infallibility only with and through the Pope; without 
him and unconnected with him it has none.§ 


1 Turrecremata, Apol. in Conc. Flor. Relata et Sum. de Keel. 1. ii. 
¢. xcix.c. Aeneas Sylv. Or. Viennae habita. Driedo, Dogm.1.iv. Schel- 
strate, de Sensu et Auctor. Decr. Cone. Const. Rom. 1686. Beidtel, 
p. 394. 

2 Petr. de Alliaco ap. Gerson, ii. 940. Cajetan, de Auct. Pont. et 
Cone. ¢. vill. ix. Gregor. de Valentia, disp. i. q. i. punct. 7, § 44, p. 370, 
ad 7m. ed. Ingolst. 1595. Bennettis, rp. i. t. i. p. 377. Ballerini, de Pot. 
Keel. ¢. vii. p. 101. Phillips, K. R. i. § 31. 

3 Salmeron, l.c. p. 188, iv. 2. : 

4 Salmeron, t. xii. tract. 77 (Andries, J.c. p. 284 seq.): ‘Nos tamen 
illi sententiae magis assentimur, Concilium inventum esse Spiritus S., 
tacite suggestum §. Petro... . et ejus successoribus tamquam remedium 
certis temporibus opportunum ad terminandas vel extinguenilas de fide 
vel sacramentis controversias vel ad abusus (disciplinae) exstirpandos... 
ita tamen ut haec suggestio non efficiat jus stricte divinum, sed jus tantum 
canonicum s. ecclesiasticum.’ 

5 The greater number of theologians have declared against the neces- 
sity of General Councils maintained by Febronius and others (de Statu 
Keel: 't. i.1¢: vi; § 7). 

® Greg. de Valentia, l.c. p. 360 seq. Salmeron, l.c. p. 282 seq. 


ig2 The Pope and the Bishops. 





7 Canus, de loc. Theol. 1. v. c. v. seq. 171: ‘ Ecclesiae vero auctorita- 
tem eam nunc appello, quae synodorum etiam generalium ac summi Pon- 
tificis est. Haec enim est wna res prorus, ut non differat multum inter 
Ecclesiae, Conciliorum Sedisque Apostolicae judicia, propterea quod con- 
nexa haec et colligata sunt, quemadmodum esse videmus humanum corpus 
et caput.’ Cf. Gregory of Valentia, l.c. p. 363. Thus spoke, on the 
Ist March 1438, Bishop Peter of Digne before Eugenius IV.: ‘ Quamquam 
una et eadem atque indivisa sit potestas Papae ex Concilii generalis, 
tamen aliter et aliter. . .. Dixi quod aliter et aliter eadem potestas est in 
utroque quia in Ecclesia fundamentaliter et in habitu in Papa vero 
actualiter in exercitio’ (Cecconi, Studii Storici sul Concilio di Firenze, 
vol. i. p. dIxviii.). 

8 Vide Schizler, Die Pipstliche Unfehlbarkeit aus dem Wesen der 
Kirche bewiesen, Freib. 1870, pp. 91, 92. Cf. the whole of the tenth 
chapter, p. 89 seq. 


ou 

Are, then, the bishops still really judges, and not merely 
advisers of the Pope? The bishops assembled at the Council 
are judges.! 1. Because with the Pope they represent the whole 
apostolate of the Church, which in the Council of the Apostles 
at Jerusalem pronounced a judicial judgment. 2. Councils at- 
tribute to themselves this office of judging ; the Pope recognises 
it in the confirmation of decrees, which are signed by all the 
bishops.2 3. If the bishops were merely counsellors, there 
would be no reason to limit the right of speech only to bishops 
and to persons endowed with some part of the episcopal 
authority ; it would more fitly belong to learned theologians 
and canonists. In so far as the Pope takes counsel of the 
bishops in preparing a definition may they be considered coun- 
sellors ;> but they must not be regarded as mere counsellors. 


1 Vide Schizler, Die Pipstliche Unfehlbarkeit, le. p. 103; the fol- 
lowing also teach it: Turrecremata, Sum. 1. iii. ¢. Ixiii. lxiv.; Canus, l.c. 
q. 2 seq. 163; Bellarmin. de Cone. 1. i. ec. xviii.; Salmeron, tract. 79 (An- 
dries, p. 283, note); Bened. XIV. de Syn. Dioec. 1. xiii. c. ii.n.3. The 
introduction of the Const. Vat. Dei Filius, of 24th April 1870, has the 
words: ‘ Sedentibus nobiscum et judicantibus universi orbis episcopis..’ 

2 Upon the formula in which the bishops confirm the decrees of the 
Council vide Hefele, Cone. i. p. 18 seq. 

2 Greg. de Val. l.c. p. 367 ad 4: ‘Quodsi quis propterea quod Pontifex 
hujusmodi Patrum opera atque judicio in determinanda fidei sententia 
utitur, quis putet Pontificis consiliaros eos appellari posse, non est de yo- 
cabulo magnopere laborandum,.’ 


Power of the Pope not arbitrary. 193 





§ 10. 


Neither the Council of Trent nor ofthe Vatican has decided 
the question whether episcopal jurisdiction is derived from 
Christ immediately or mediately through the Pope. The 
majority of the Fathers at Trent were of opinion that it was 
communicated immediately from the Pope. The Pope charged 
his legates, for the sake of peace, to leave this question untouched, 
since a decision on the subject was not then necessary against 
heretics.1 The Vatican Council only teaches that the Pope 
has the supreme and immediate episcopal authority over all 
Churches and all the faithful, according to the teaching of the 
majority of theologians for centuries ; that from the Holy See 
all power in the Church is transmitted to pastors and flocks.” 

1 Dr. Friedrich is quite unauthorised in saying (Tagebuch, Supple- 
ment, p. 437 seq.) that at Trent the judgment contained in the Creed of - 
the Second Council of Lyons and the propositions of the Fifth Lateran 
Council were unrecognised, that the Council of Florence was repudiated 


(p. 199), and that ‘the claims of the Curial system were not heard’ (p. 244). 
* Cf. Andries, op. cit. p. xxvi. seq. 


Part III. Tue Power or THE Pope Is NOT THE ONLY POWER ; 
IT IS NOT ARBITRARY AND ABSOLUTE. 

§ 1, The power of the Church not solely vested in the Pope. Council of 
Trent. § 2. The opponents of the Council repeatedly contradict them- 
selves. § 3. Restriction upon the power of the Pope. § 4. No change 
made by the Vatican Council in this matter. § 5. Apprehensions 
founded upon mere suspicion. § 6. National Churches and bishops as 
vicars of the civil power. 


$1. 

It has been asserted that, in opposition to the Tridentine 
canon, according to which: there exists a divinely appointed 
hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons, the decrees of the 
Vatican Council say that the Pope is the only divinely ap- 
pointed bearer of any church authority. But first, the Vati- 
can Council does not say this; on the contrary, it expressly 
states that the bishops-are appointed by the Holy Spirit ; and 
secondly, the Tridentine canon! speaks- of the hierarchy of order, 

VOL. I. ce) 


194 The Pope and the Bishops. 


but not of the power of jurisdiction, neither of the relation of 
the three grades to one another, nor of that of the bishops 
amongst themselves. Although the Pope possesses the fulness 
of power in the Church, he does not alone possess all power. 
Although it may be within his authority to limit the jurisdic- 
tion of a bishop, the bishop does not on this account become a 
mere deputy or vicar of the Pope. The bishops now, as ever, 
are called, and are, Ordinaries.? ‘They possess an ordinary power, 
which they exercise by virtue of their office, and which they 
can impart to others. The Council of Trent makes a distinc- 
tion between the ordinary power of bishops (potestas ordi- 
naria) and the special power delegated to them by the Pope. 
As long as the episcopal office is an essential element in the 
organism of the Church, which it will be till the end of the 
world, so long will bishops be no mere Papal vicars.* 


1 Sess. xxiii. can. 6, de Ord. 

* §. Thom. Opusc. de Perfectione Vitae Spiritualis: ‘ Notandum, quod 
ordinarium ab ordine dicitur ; unde ordinarium videtur importare id, quod 
secundum communem ordinem in republica fit semper; propter quod illud, 
quod competit diversis gradibus et statibus in republica ordinatis ordi- 
nariun dicitur. Unde potestates competentes in hujusmodi institutis, in 

- ecclesia se. patriarchali, archiepiscopali, episcopali, et parochiali, dicuntur 
ordinarti, et illi, qui simpliciter in talibus statibus et gradibus statuuntur, 
ut regant populum per se vel per alium secundum gradum et statum, in 
quibus statuuntur, dicuntur ordinarii. Potestas autem commissarii pro- 
price loquendo videtur dici quando alicui ab aliquo committitur eadem po- 
testas quae est sua ordinaria, secundum quam vice ejus aliquid agat. Unde 
collatio talis potestatis non dicit novum gradum potestatis, sed dicit com- 
missionem ejusdem potestatis ab instituto in ipsa potestate, ita quod po- 
testas commissionem ejusdem potestatis ab instituto in ipsa potestate ita 
quod potestas commissaria est commissa ab instituto in gradu potestatis 
simpliciter. Et ita patet, quod praelati isti a Papa positi non sunt com- 
missarit sed vere ordinarii. 

5 Vide Schiizler, Die Piipstliche Unfehlbarkeit aus dem Wesem der 
Kirche bewiesen, Freib. 1870, p. 45. 


§ 2. 

The opponents of the Council are on this point full of con- 
tradictions. In 1868 Schulte wrote, ‘Scarcely any trace remains 
of the strife between so-called episcopalism and papalism.’ Yet 
now he says that, by the Vatican definition of the 18th July 


Power of the Pope not arbitrary. 195 





1870, the bishops have been degraded into Papal deputies and 
diocesan vicars;! and that this degradation of the bishops is 
contained in their oath to the Pope, which is now, he says, 
recognised as a real vassal’s oath.2 But the form of the oath 
now standing in the Pontificale is more than two hundred 
years old ;> its matter existed in the formulas of Gregory VII.* 
Schulte thinks ‘that many bishops may not have been ac- 
quainted with the consecration oath, anyhow may not have 
properly considered it when it was read over to them, many 
may not have understood it.’* But this would have very little 
importance as far as regards the question of right. Itis alleged 
that bishops are degraded by holding as distinctions the titles 
conferred upon them by the Pope of ‘assistant at the Papal 
throne, domestic prelate,’ &c. But would it be considered also 
a degradation if a bishop were to become knight, companion, or 
grand cross of this or that civil order, privy councillor, &c.? 
Bishops in using in their title the words ‘ by the grace of God 
and favour of the See Apostolic,’ words of frequent use in 
the thirteenth century,° clearly express that they are indebted to 
the See of Rome for their office.7 The opponents of the Vatican 
Council pretend that they desire the Church to be ‘ such as she 
was before the 18th July 1870’ and in reality they desire her 
to be such as according to the opinion of Febronius she was in 
the first six centuries, with a complete abstraction of medizval 
developments, and a continual movement in favour ofa national 
Church. Janus, the prototype of all New-Protestant literature, 
proves this, as well as the newspaper articles of the same party, 
and the publications of Friedrich and Schulte. The latter 
assumes that since the time of Gregory VIL the Church has 
undergone a complete change. ‘The episcopal authority has 
been annihilated, crushed by Papal omnipotence.’ And yet 
this change is said to have begun on the 18th July 1870! And 
those who now assert this could be good Catholics until that 
‘fatal July day’! But if the life of the Church during long 
centuries was not according to her true constitution ; ifshe found 
herself again at Constance and at Basle, having, therefore, lost 
herself both before and since,® she could not be the true Church. 


196 The Pope and the Bishops. 





She would long since have cessed to be the Bride of Christ, and 
would have been without divine assistance ; the greater number 
of bishops and theologians would have erred in faith, and the 
separation of Protestants from Catholics would have been a 
lawful act. Wicliffe, like the opponents of our day, called the 
Pope ‘ Antichrist ?!! but the whole Church has branded him and. 
all his followers. Marcus Antonius de Dominis urged that the 
spiritual power of the Pope was a late development ;!? but all 
Catholics have judged him to be heretical. 


1 Schulte, ii. p. 75. 

2 Schulte, ii. p. 45. 

3 Cf. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, ii. § 81, p.193 seq. 

4 C. iv. de Jurejur. ii. 24, Mansi, Conc. xx. 526. 

5 Schulte, ii. 52, 53. 

% Zaccaria, op. cit. t. ii. dissert. 12. 

7 Upon the words of Gregory I. 1. i. Ep. 38, ad Petr. Subd., in which 
he says to the bishops of Sicily, ‘in B. Petri Ap. principis natalem (Romam) 
conyeniant, ut ei, ex cujus largitate pastores sunt, gratiarum actiones sol- 
vant,’ the remark: ‘Idem profitentur antistites, dum se suis in epistolis et 
commonitoriis praefantur Apostolicae Sedis gratia episcopos. Sedem 
enim Apostolicam pro 8. Petro usurpari et vice versa norunt eruditi 
omnes.’ 

8 Schulte, ii. p. 68. 

® Friedrich, p. 141. This is just the language used by Edmund 
Richer (Du Plessis, t. ii. p. ii. p. 305) of the ‘veritas justi regiminis 
Ecclesiae jure postliminii in Constantiensi et Basileensi Conciliisi 
restituti.’ 

10 In 1644 the Sorbonne condemned several propositions of Brachet de 
la Milletiére, ‘in quantum damnant disciplinam et consuetudinem ecclesi- 
asticam ab omnibus cath. communionis ecclesiis receptam, quantumcum- 
que diuturnam tamquam abusivam et institutioni Christi ac evangelicae 
doctrinae contrariam,’ as ‘ propositiones temerarius, Ecclesiae injuriosis 
et haereticas’ (Du Plessis, t. iii. p. i. p. 20). The censure passed by the 
Faculty of Cologne upon the apostate De Dominis is also to the point (ib. 
p, ii. p. 192 seq.). Upon the first proposition, ‘ Mulier fortissima Ecclesia, 
miserandum in modum delituit,’ it is said: ‘ Propositio haeretica, visibili- 
tati Ecclesiae, quae nullo unquam tempore delituit, repugnans.’ The 
further one, ‘Ecclesia sub Romano Pontifice non est amplius Ecclesia 
sed respublica quaedam humana sub Papae Monarchia tota temporali; 
vinea est ad solum Noe inebriendum,’ was called ‘ Propositio haeretica et 
maledica.’ The Sorbonne said upon the same proposition (ib. t. ii. P. ii, 
p. 105): ‘Haec prop. 1 parte est haeretica ; dicit enim veram Kcclesiam, 
cum non alia sit quam quae Romano Pontifici paret, jam desiisse ; pro re- 
liqua vero parte est calumniosa et scandalosa.’ 

" Du Plessis, t. i. vp. ii. p. 40. 


Power of the Pope not arbitrary. 197 





12 De Dominis, de Rep. Chr. 1. iv. c. vi. n. 7; ¢. vii. n. 38, 53; ©. ix. 
n. 19; c. x. n. 53; also the Censura Coloniensis (Du Plessis, t. iii. P. il. 
pp. 225, 226). 


§ 3. 


Like these, Dollinger, Schulte, and their followers pretend 
that the supreme power of the Pope is omnipotent, arbitrary, 
and absolute. 

In the Middle Ages, John of Salisbury, a supporter of the 
Papacy and friend of Adrian IV., said: ‘That the Pope was 
truly the “servant of the servants,” and encompassed by cares 
and toil ;! that the very elevation of his dignity restricted his 
actions ;? and that he had no right to overstep the law of God.’ 
This last has been frequently expressed by Popes Alexander III. 
and Innocent III.,* by many of their successors in various utter- 
ances,° and is the common doctrine of theologians and canonists.® 
As Walter’ the canonist shows, the Pope is, above all, circum- 
scribed by the consciousness of the necessity of making a 
righteous and beneficent use of the duties attached to his 
privileges, and that the Popes have always listened to the most 
plain-spoken admonitions of learned and pious men.$ The Pope 
is also circumscribed by the spirit and practice of the Church, 
by the respect due to General Councils? and to ancient statutes 
and customs,!? by the rights of bishops,!! by his relation with 
civil powers,!? by the traditional mild tone of government?® in- 
dicated by the aim of the institution of the primacy ‘to feed,’ 
finally by the respect indispensable in a spiritual power towards 
the spirit and mind of nations.!* Let us hear Dr. Dollinger: ‘ Out- 
side the Catholic Church it has become almost customary to 
designate the Papal power as a boundless and absolute power 
which recognises no law superior to itself, and we hear much of 
Papal omnipotence, or at least of a never-abandoned. claim to 
universal dominion. All these ideas and charges are untrue 
and unjust. From one point of view, the Papal power is the 
most restricted power imaginable ; for its first duty, as Popes 
have repeated times without number, is to watch over the laws 
and ordinances of the Church, and guard them from infringe- 
ment. The ordinances of the Church have been long established 


198 The Pope and the Bishups. 





and its legislation has been carried into the most minute parti- 
culars. The Papal See is also especially bound to be governed 
by.the most careful consideration of the decrees of the Church. 
Only upon these conditions can the Pope reckon upon the obe- 
dience of Churches, and the confidence and respect of the faith- 
ful. Hence any one with a knowledge of church legislation 
could foretell in most cases with certainty how a Papal decision 
would turn. Catholics hold that a considerable portion of the 
ordinances of the Church rest upon divine command ; are there- 
fore not to be touched by Papal or any other authority. No 
Pope can dispense what God has ordained. This is acknow- 
ledged universally. What can restrain the Pope? de Maistre 
inquires. Everything : canons, laws, national usages, sovereigns,. 
courts, parliaments, prescription, remonstrances, treaties, duty, 
fear, wisdom, and above all public opinion, the queen of the 
world,’!® 


1 John. Saresb. Polyer. 1. viii. c. xxiii. p. 811: ‘ Qui Romanus Pontifex. 
est eumdem pro conditione Ecclesiae, quae nunc est esse servum servorum, 
necesse est. Non equidem nuncupative ad gloriam, ut quidem opinantur 
sed substantive utpote qui servis Dei serviet vel invitus. Adeo quidem ut 
nisi servierit aut expontificem aut exromanum esse necesse sit. Quis 
ergo eum servum servorum esse ambigit? Dominum Hadrianum... 
hujus rei testem invoco, quia Romano Pontifice nemo miserabilior est, 
conditione ejus nulla miserior. Et licet nihil aliud laedat, necesse est ut 
citissime vel solo labore deficiat.’ 

2 Ib. p. 813: ‘Si in summa potentia minima licentia est, profecto- 
qui legibus praeest, nulli subjicitur, sed ab illicitis arctius coarctatur. 
Ergo et Romano Pontifici minimum, eo ipso quod plurimum, licet.’ 

3 Td. 1167, Ep. 198, ad Alex. III. Pap. p. 218: ‘ Fateor, et verum est, 
omnia Romano licere Pontifici, sed ea dumtaxat, quae de jure divino ec- 
clesiasticae sunt concessa potestati. Liceat ei nova jura condere, vetera 
abrogare, dum tamen illa, quae a Dei Verbo in Evangelio vel Lege per- 
petuam causam habent, mutare non possit. Ausim dicere, quod nec Pe- 
trus ipse perseverantem in scelere quemquam et voluntate peccandi posset 
absolvere, nec claves accepit, quibus regni januam posset impoenitentibus. 
aperire.’ 

* Alexander III. c. iv. Super eo, v. 19, de Usuris. Innoc. III. ec. 
Literas 13, de Restitut. Spoliat. ii. 18, ad Bituric. 1. xv. Ep. 106, p. 617, 
Philippo Regi Francorum: ‘Cum contra... . veritatis sententiam nostra 
non possit auctoritas dispensare.’ Huber, page 18, cites a passage from 
1. i. Ep. 127, p. 116, ad Capitul. Camer., according to which, he says, In- 
nocent ITI. concluded that from the plenitude of his power the Pope was: 
independent of right. The passage is simple enough: ‘Licet autem in- 


Power of the Pope not arbitrary. 199 





tentionis nostrae non sit, investituras de vacaturis factas contra canonum 
instituta ratas habere qui secundum plenitudinem potestatis de jure pos- 
sumus supra jus [Coll. iii. has super his] dispensare,’ &c. It treats of the 
appointment to a canonical office, and is not a general proposition. 
‘Super his’ is the best reading; but even if ‘supra jus’ be preferred, 
there is no question of ‘ jus divinum,’ which it would have been necessary 
to have especially named. A dispensation also is a concessio ultra (supra) 
or contra jus. : 

5 Bened. XIV. de Syn. Dioc. 1. xiii, c. xxi. n. 7, says of the dispensa- 
tiones in radice matrimonii, that they were granted ‘tunc solum, cum im- 
pedimentum, propter quod matrimonium irritum fuit, nequaquam ortum 
habuit a jure divino, vel naturali, sed a lege dumtaxat ecclesiastica, quam 
positivam vocant et cui summus Pontifex derogare potest.’ Also the decree 
of the same, of the 13th Sept. 1755: ‘Quum super matrimonio’ (Conc. 
Trid. ed. Richter, p. 274). 

5 Barbosa, de Offic. et Potest. Episcopi, p. i. c. i. n. 28. Reiffenstuel, 
Jus Can. 1. i. tit. 2, § 18, n. 455. Schmalzegrueber, 1. i. tit. 2, § 8, n. 57. 
Phillips, K. R. v. § 212, p. 180. 

7 Walter, K. R. § 126, pp. 241-243, xi. ed. 

5 Innocent IY. caused a very candid memorial from Bishop Robert of - 
Lincoln on the faults of the Papal Court to be read in presence of the 
cardinals, and gave the author all proofs of his esteem (Brown, Fascicul. 
ver. Expet. ii. p. 250; Rob. Ep. 113, 114; Lingard, Eng. Hist. iii. p. 207, 
n. 1, Germ. Trans.). Hadrian IV. also gave willing ear to the candid ex- 
pressions of John of Salisbury (Polycr. 1. vi. c. xxiv. pp. 623-625). Also 
Paschal II. a.p, 1111, and Pius VII. a.p. 1813, listened meekly to the re- 
proaches made them. The Popes in so doing followed the example of 
St. Peter, who suffered St. Paul’s reproofs with meekness and charity: 
‘ Erat objurgatore suo ipse qui objurgebatur mirabilior et ad imitandum 
difficilior.’ Aug. in Gal. c.ii. Cf. Ep.89,ad Hieron. Cypr. Ep. 71, ed. Baluz. 
Maucler, de Monarchia Divina, pp. 251, 461. Phillips, K. R. i. § 30, 
p- 244. Petrus Venerabilis wrote to Innocent II. (1. ii. Ep. 28, p. 246) : 
‘Cum jure majestas apostolica omnibus dominetur; soli tantum rationi 
subjici gloriatur.’ 

® Of course those meant are such as have been recognised as general, 
and have been confirmed by the Holy See, as is shown by the quoted 
passage of the Decretal, c. vii. xiv. 1; C. xxv. q. 1, c. xvii.; C. xxv. q. 2. 

10 Bellarmin. de Rom. Pont. c. vi. vii. C. xxv. q. 1; c. xxi. 19.; C. 
ead. q. 2. 

1 Bellarmin. de Rom. Pont. 1. i. ¢. iii. says bishops are not vicarii 
Pontificis maximi. Also Petrus Ballerini, lc. n. 9, p. 171. 

2 It is clear that this has become much more difficult now since there 
no longer exists any Catholic State, and the Church has become subjected 
to jura majestatis in sacra that were unknown formerly. None the less 
it is nowadays more true even than formerly, quod eminentiae regalis 
obtentu quandoque rigor temperatur ecclesiasticus et canonum severitas 
mansuescit. Petr. Bles. Ep. 164, p. 459. 

13 Greg. M. 1. viii. Ep. 30, serves as a special example. Vide also 
Maucler, l.c. p. 248 seq. 


200 The Pope and the Bishops. 





M4 Cf. Phillips, l.c. p. 245: ‘ As a ruler acts wisely in examining the 
means which are to serve him in accomplishing the objects he aims at in 
his line of government, so the Pope must also examine and weigh the 
means furnished him by the epoch in which he lives for the increase and 
strengthening of the kingdom of Christ upon earth. In this sense we can 
say with truth that it is the duty of the Pope to consider the spirit of the 
age.’ Innocent III. writes as follows to the bishops of Sardinia, lib. vi. 
Ep. 16 (Migne, cexv. p. 23) : ‘Sic Apostolica Sedes auctoritatem propriam 
moderatur, ut plus quod expedit quam quod licet attendens potentiam 
suam publicae utilitati conformet.’ 

15 Kirche und Kirchen, pp. 38, 39. At p. 41 are cited the utterances 
of Card. Gonsalvi and of Archbishop Kenrick. Cf. the same author, 
Ueber gemischte Ehen, p. 65. 


§ 4. 


Was all this changed at one blow on the 18th July 1870? 
Surely not, or it had been the greatest wonder the world’s his- 
tory had ever seen, especially as rather more than eight weeks 
later the Pope was deprived by an unparalleled breach of faith 
of all the earthly support of his power. The defenceless Pope 
has still to face sovereigns, courts, parliaments, and national 
usages. Remonstrances and treaties have not lost their signifi- 
cance. The influence of duty, fear, and wisdom is still felt. 
Public opinion, far from having lost its force, has in many places 
gained the strength of insanity. The canons and laws of the 
Church are still in full vigour, and she is bound as of old by 
agreements and by legislation. Has the Pope acquired the 
right to revoke or change the commands of God? Can he de- 
fine a doctrine that is not part of revelation? Can he abolish 
ancient dogmatic definitions?! A definition once made remains 
unchanged and unchangeable for all time. Has a change taken 
place in the Pope? Has Pius 1X. any powers not held by 
Pius VII.? All Popes have presupposed the infallibility of 
their doctrinal definitions, and have ascribed to the Holy See 
the possession of the plenitude of the power of the Church, 
recognising at the same time the limits of their authority, and 
distinguishing between their personal unworthiness and the 
dignity of their office? They know full well that the Church’s 
true Head is Christ, whose vicars they are, and to whom they 
will shortly have to render a strict account of the manner in 


Power of the Pope not arbitrary. 201 
which they have performed their trust. It is the uttermost 
perversion of the doctrine of the Church to speak of the ‘ omni- 
potence’ ascribed to the Pope by the Vatican decrees, and to say 
‘that the Pope might in one day abolish all the established 
dogmas of the Church, and alter all its discipline ; that there is 
no longer any firm dogma.” 





1 The Council speaks clearly, Vat. Const. c. iv.: ‘Neque enim Petri 
successoribus Spiritus S8. promissus est, ut eo revelante novam doctrinam 
patefacerent, sed ut eo assistente traditam per Apostolos revelationem seu 
fidei depositum sancte custodirent et fideliter exponerent.’ 

2 Vide Innocent III. 1. i. Ep. 85, ad Archiep. Mediol. p. 74: ‘ Licet et 
peccatores, simus et nati de peccatoribus, illius tamen et vices agimus 
et locum tenemus, qui peccatum non fecit,’ &c. Cf. Ep. 88, p. 75. 

3 Schulte, ii. p. 75 seq. 


§ 5. 


At the bottom of all the extravagant assertions which we 
hear nowadays—for example that the Vatican Council has made 
‘the boundless absolutism of the Papacy into an article of faith’ 
—lies in point of fact (apart from perversions of the dogma) no- 
thing more or less than a dread lest Papal Infallibility and the 
supremacy of jurisdiction be misused to overthrow the existing 
ordinances of Church and State. Such a dread shows an entire 
absence of Catholic faith. It was of faith before the 18th 
July 1870, that Christ had conferred upon St. Peter the supre- 
macy of jurisdiction for the well-being of the Church. The 
Council of Florence had defined this doctrine, and it had been 
taught universally. It was also of faith, upon the ground of the 
Catholic interpretation of Holy Scripture, that the whole Church 
would not be suffered to fall into error. Faith in these doctrines 
precludes the idea that the Pope, as supreme guardian of revela- 
tion, could ever commit the Church to a doctrinal error, or that 
civil authority could suffer from a power that has always taught, 
and will always and does always teach, that civil authority is 
from God, and that obedience towards it isa duty. No injury 
can ever be done to the faith by the Holy See, to which every 
age of Christianity has looked to confirm its faith. Bossuet 
says that its energy at the time of Leo the Great (in the fifth 


202 The Pope and the Bishops. 





century) appeared to him so wonderful, that he thought in suc- 
ceeding ages it must have lessened rather than increased.1 

The power of the Church has never been an absolute power, 
for she has always possessed in the Gospels and in tradition a 
fixed code of laws. The necessity of obeying these laws has 
given her a constitution, and the divine assistance is her sure 
guide? Groundless, therefore, and unnecessary is any fear lest 
the Church should injure the State, and fears with regard to the 
future position of bishops are equally untenable. Even humanly 
considered, and setting aside the divine ordinances in the insti- 
tution of the episcopate, the autonomy of several hundred bishops 
without a head would be likely to be the cause of far graver 
abuses than a strong central power. 


1 Corollar. Defens. § 10, t. ii. p. 318: ‘Haec habens et exercens Apos- 
tolica Sedes tanta antiquitus auctoritate viguit, ut (fidens dixerim) immi- 
nuta magis quam aucta esse videatur.’ 

? Liberatore, Lo Stato e la Chiesa, c. ii. a. 3, p. 160. 


§ 6. 


The supposed design of making the bishops vicars of the 
Pope leads us to consider another design of an opposite cha- 
racter, that of making them vicars of the civil power.! J. N, 
Nuytz aimed at this when he wrote that the decision of a National 
Council admits of no further discussion, and the civil power can 
settle an affair as decided by such National Council (Syllabus, 
Prop. 36), A French pamphleteer and an Italian Liberal, who 
thought that national Churches could be established after being 
withdrawn and separated from the authority of the Roman 
Pontiff? (Prop. 37), had the same object in view. It was also 
intended by J. N. Nuytz and others, who declared that bishops 
were possessed of a double power—one purely ecclesiastical, 
limited to their authority to ordain and teach; the other, referring 
to jurisdiction and temporal matters in the widest sense of the 
words, and granted expressly or tacitly by the civil power, which 
could revoke it at pleasure (Prop. 25).? The same end is in- 
dicated by the assertion that the State possesses as inherent in 
itself the right of presenting bishops, and may require of them 


Power of the Pope not arbitrary. 203 





that they take possession of their dioceses in virtue of their no- 
mination before having received the confirmation of the Holy 
See* (Prop. 50); further, that the lay government has the right of. 
deposing bishops from their pastoral functions, and is not bound 
to apply to the Pope nor obey him in those things that relate to 
bishops’ sees and the institution of bishops’ (Prop. 51). In 
Germany bishops have already before this been regarded as 
‘anointers’ appointed by the State, and now again the former 
idea of a national Church has found favour in many quarters.® 
It has been hoped, by means of State authority and penal laws 
against Catholics, to found at last a State Church. But the faith 
of the bishops, priests, and people is unshaken, and although 
much assistance has been given and material power has lent its 
aid, the high-sounding preparations for a national Church have 
served only to found a new and small sect, which has been joined 
by a few apostate priests who have sought to win over bishops 
and kings by exaggerating the episcopal and royal power. The 
national or imperial Church would convert the bishops into 
vicars of the State. The Universal Church alone maintains 
them in their true position. 


1 In old times also measures were taken to bring this about. Vide 
Hugo Grotius, Commentar. Posthumus de Imperio Summarum Potestatum 
circa Sacra, c. ii. n, 2: ‘Ecclesiarum pastores, qua tales sunt, i.e. qua- 
tenus munere funguntur docendi et declarandi verbum Dei auditoribus 
suis s. fidelibus, non esse summarum potestatum vicarios.’ He asserts, 
nevertheless, that they: ‘Quatenus praeter pastorale munus aliquid im- 
perii aut jurisdictionis accipiunt, ejus accessionis ratione verissime dici 
summarum potestatum vicarios aut delegatos.’ Vide on this subject the 
work, De Finibus ntriusque Potestatis, Ecclesiasticae et Laicae, Comment. 
Auctore D..... presbytero monacho Ord. 8S. Bened.e Congreg. Casin. et 
jurisprud. eccl. prof. Primum Lugani, dein Ratisbonae editus impensa 
J. M. Englerth, 1781, iv. cap. i. p. 4 seq. 

2 Alloc. Multis gravibusque, 17 Dec. 1860, and Jam dudum cernimus, 
18 March 1861. 

3 Lit. Ad Apostolicae Sedis, Syll. Prop. 25. 

4 Alloc. on South America, 15 Dec. 1856, Nunquam fore, Syll. Prop. 50. 
Those who being elected or nominated enter upon their office before 
their appointment has been confirmed are, according to the law of the 
Church, ‘ intrusi,’ even if they act as procurators or stewards. Greg. X. 
in Cone. Lugd. ii. (c. v. Avaritiae, i. 6,de Elect. in 6). Bonifac. VIII. 
Const. Ad Reformandum, 5 Aug. 1485. Julius II. Const. Romani Ponti- 
ficis, 28 Jul. 1505. Julius III. Const. Sanctissimus; cf. Reiffenstuel in 


204 The Pope and the Bishops. 





1. i. Decret. tit. 6, § 2,n. 40 seq. Clem. XI. Const. In suprema, 24 Aug. 
1709; Ubi nobis, 7 Mart. 1710. Pius VII: Briefs to Cardinal Maury, 
5 Nov. and to Mgr. Corboli, 2 Dec. 1810. 

5 Alloc. Lit. ap. Multiplices inter, 10 June 1851, against Vigil. Alloc. 
Acerbissimum, 27 Sept. 1852, on New Granada. 

6 Especially with the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung. e.g. Supplement, 
31 Aug. 1870. It saw in Prof. Leopold Schmidt, who died out of the 
Church, and who was once a candidate for the bishopric of Mayence, a 
forerunner of the new national Church. 


ESSAY V. 
THE SYLLABUS AND MODERN STATES. 


Tue Syllabus published with the Encyclical of December 8, 
1864, is a collection of the principal errors of our day. It is 
frequently attacked as containing new doctrine, laying down. in- 
fallible rules, and declaring war to the death with all modern 
States and modern constitutions. Yet, on impartial examina- 
tion, any one acquainted with ecclesiastical matters could see 
plainly that it taught nothing new. The propositions are all in 
effect contained in the Encyclical ‘ Mirari vos’! of Gregory XVI., 
August 15, 1832, which at the time no Catholic ventured to 
attack, bat which some now call ‘ill-famed ; in the first Ency- 
clical of Pius IX., dated November 9, 1846 ;? and in later Allo- 
cutions and apostolic writings.? Neitber is it correct to say 
that the Encyclical of December 8, 1864, only refers generally 
to the condemnation of several pernicious opinions, whilst the 
Syllabus appended to it is the first decidedly to denounce them. 
The Encyclical contains many separate condemned propositions, 
and the two mutually complete each other. We will proceed 
to consider: 1. The general and legal aspect (the formal signi- 
ficance) of the Syllabus ; 2. Its separate propositions. 

1 Bull. Rom. Cont. t. xix. pp. 126-132, Const. 167. 

2 Acta Pii IX. vol. i. Romae, 1854, pp. 4-24. 

3 They are collected in a volume, published by Pustel at Ratisbon in 


1865: Ss. D.N. Pii P.P. IX. Epistola Encyclica, data die vii. Dec. 


1864; accedit Appendix antiq. mora et novissima documenta conti- 
nens, &c. 


iPaARTale For AL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ENcyciicaL or 1864 
AND OF THE SYLLABUS. 


§ 1. Difference between the propositions of the Syllabus and ecclesiastical 
censures. § 2. Has it dogmatic force? § 3. Examples. 


206 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





aan 


Our opponents are quite wrong in supposing that all the 
propositions contained in the Syllabus are condemned as false 
and heretical, and that therefore all the propositions contradic- 
tory to these are so many articles of faith. On reading the 
whole eighty propositions, very little impartiality would suffice 
to discover great differences between them. The Pope has zo- 
where declared all these eighty propositions to be heretical, and 
only the contradictory of an heretical proposition can be consi- 
dered as degma.! Each separate proposition is not described 
as heretical nor qualified in any other way; they are only con- 
demned collectively as false and perverse opinions. 

Propositions may be distinguished as heretical, erroneous, 
rash, impious, scandalous, dangerous, &c.2 In ecclesiastical 
judgments either each individual proposition is qualified, as, 
for instance, in the Bull of Pius VI., ‘Auctorem fidei,’? August 
28, 1794, or a set of propositions are rejected as a whole, with- 
out a determinate theological censure being applied to each 
separate proposition, as in the Bull ‘ Unigenitus’ of Clement 
XI., September 8, 1713.4 Now and then only a minimum of 
the deserved censure will be expressed in the wording ; for ex- 
ample, Alexander VII. condemned many tenets in 1665 and 
1666 as ‘at least scandalous.’® A Pope or a Council can even 
deliver a dogmatic judgment ‘in different ways, either simply 
rejecting what is evil, or also determining the degree of the evil, 
which may be very different, for this reason amongst others, 
that an error may be either directly or only indirectly opposed 
to faith.® 

1 Cf. Opinion of the Theological Faculty of Wiirzburg of 7 July 1869, 
Bre § yp.2. 

? Melchior Canus, de Locis Theologicis, |. xii.c.x. Gauthier, Pro- 
drom. ad Theol. Dogm. Schol. in Thes. Theol. ed Zaccaria, t. i. 53. 
Denzinger, Enchirid. definit. et symbol. ed. iv. Wirceb. 1865, Praef. p. ix. 
Reinerding, Theol. Fundam. t. i. p. 235, n. 406. Kilber, Theol. Wirceb. 
t. 1. disp. 3, c. ult. Append. ii. n. 252, p. 682 seq. 

3 Denzinger, l.c. pp. 388-422. 

4 Denzinger, lc. pp. 351-361. 

5 Bullar. Rom. ed. Lux. t. vi. Append. pp. 1, 2. Denzinger, lc. 


The Syllabus as a whole. 207 





pp. 317-522. Cf. Zallwein, Princip. Jur. Eccl. t.i. q. 4, c. ii. 652, § 6. 
Phillips, Lehrbuch des Kirchenrecht, § 246, p. 802, i. edit. Aichner, Com- 
pend. Jur. Eccles. § 144, p. 447. Specially appropriate to this is Do- 
minicus Viva Damnatae Theses ab Alex. VII., Innoc. XI. et Alex. VIII. 
ad theologicam trutinam revocatae, Patavii, 1732. 

6 §. Thom. Lect. iv. in 1 Cor. c. xi. Opp. xvi. p. 74, ed. Rom. 1570: 
‘Pertinet aliquid ad doctrinam fidei dupliciter: uno modo directe, sicuti 
articuli fidei, qui per se credendi proponuntur . . . . quaedam vero indirecte 
-...in quantum ex negatione eorum sequitur aliquid contrarium fidei, 
sicut si negatur Isaac fuisse filium Abrahae, sequitur aliquid contrarium 
fidei, sc. S. Scripturam continere aliqtid falsi.’ 


§ 2. 


The propositions which are contained in the Syllabus are, 
then, condemned in the mass (in globo); nothing further is de- 
termined than that these propositions must not be held or main- 
tained. ‘The faithful have to submit to the decision of the 
Church as it is given to them. It has not been decided that 
the propositions as a body are heretical, but only that they 
must be rejected; not that they all militate directly against faith 
and morals, but only that collectively they endanger them. 
None of the propositions cited in the Syllabus are entirely free 
from theological censure; each one is censured in one way or 
another, but certainly not each one in the same way. The En- 
cyclical of December 8, 1864, and the Syllabus appended to it 
lay down no rules of faith in a strict sense, but they are cer- 
tainly dogmatic decisions as well as the above-mentioned Bull 
of Clement XI. Otherwise the decision of the Council of Con- 
stance against the doctrines of Wicliffe and Huss? would not 
be dogmatic; neither the Bull of Leo X. against Luther,* nor 
that of Pius V. against Baius,® of that of Innocent XI. against 
Michael Molinos,° or of Innocent XII. against the twenty-three 
propositions from Fénélon’s bock (Mazims of the Saints).“ 
All these decrees and constitutions condemn propositions in a 
mass (in globo), and yet to Catholics they are all dogmatic. 
Martin V., after the publication of the Bull in which he ap- 
proved of the Council of Constance, desired that any one sus- 
pected of heresy should be asked, among other things, whether 
he believed in the truth of the decision of the holy Council of 


208 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





Constance concerning the forty-five propositions of Wicliffe 
and the thirty propositions of Huss, by which these sets of 
forty-five and thirty propositions were declared not to be Ca- 
tholic, some of them notoriously heretical, some false, some in- 
solent and seditious, and some offensive to pious ears.§ 

This condemnation of propositions in globo is rightly 
and wisely done,® in order to prevent any of them being de- 
fended or held, although they,do not all deserve the same cen- 
sure.!0 A considerate doctor wisely forbids his patient to partake 
of the dishes spread out. on a richly-supplied table, because all 
are hurtful to him; although he does not pronounce in what 
way each one would hurt him, and which would hurt more and 
which less. Some consider that these condemnations in a 
mass are a novelty in Church discipline. Even were it so, 
this would be no reason for Catholics not to respect them. 
But in fact they are no novelty. When the writings of Arius 
(especially his Thalia) were condemned by the Council of 
Nice, everything therein contained was not considered in the 
same light. When the works of Origen were condemned by 
Theophilus, Epiphanius, and Pope Anastasius, everything that 
Origen had written was not equally disapproved. At the con- 
demnation of the Three Chapters, in the fifth Ecumenical 
Council, the whole contents of the letter of Ibas to Maris the 
Persian, the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and those of 
Theodoret against Cyril were not considered deserving, in all 
their parts, of the same censure. In the Sixth Council the let- 
ters of Honorius to Sergius and of Pyrrhus of Constantinople 
to Pope John IV. were condemned. Who can believe that 
everything found in these could be proscribed in equal measure? 
If that had been the case, articles of faith, theological and per- 
fectiy correct propositions, must have been likewise condemned. 

The distinction between dogmatic judgments which enjoin 
the acceptance of certain propositions and give a precise rule 
of faith and those which are only dogmatic judgments in a 
wider sense, inasmuch as they reject certain propositions in 
general, solves the apparent contradiction among theologians, 
some considering the Syllabus avong the Papal dogmatic deci- 


The Syllabus as a whole. 209 





sions in the sense of the Vatican Council, others disputing it. 
When the Church censures a doctrine without stating the kind 
of censure, we are bound to consider it worthy of censure, but 
not necessarily of the highest degree of censure! 


1 Kilber, Theol. Wirceb. t. iv. tract. 3, disp. 4, c. ii. a. 7, n. 244, 
p. 349: ‘ Bullae Unigenitus non deest character definitionis dogmaticae ex 
eo, quod contra Quesnelli propositiones latae fuerint censurae, ut aiunt, 
in globo. Ratio est, quia hic defectus nec est juris nec facti. Non est 
defectus juris : quia per ejusmodi censuram in globo imprimis propositio- 
nes omnes constat rejiciendas, deinde intelligitur, nullam esse censuram, 
quae alicui saltem propositioni non conveniat. Unde postremo, quamvis 
vi Bullae et condemnationis distingui nequeat, quaenam nota cuilibet ex 
damnatis propp. debeatur, tamen id Theologorum studio et industria facile 
cognosci potest, et nullatenus ad rationem dogmatici judicii necesse est, 
ut applicationem qualificationum ulterius determinet....atque ex eo 
(quoque constat), quod non summa claritas et individualis quasi determi- 
natio in condemnationibus requiratur. Nec est defectus facti, quia con- 
ssuetudinis ecclesiasticae est similis condemnatio, ut patet ex decretis.’ 
Conc. Constant. adv. Wicleffum et Hussum, ex Bulla Leonis X. adv. 
Lutherum, ex Constit. Pii V., Gregorii XIII. et Urbani VIII. adv. Bajum 
et Jansenium. 

2 Kilber, le. n. 245, pp. 350, 351: ‘ Equidem ex his conficitur, Bullam 
Unigenitus non esse fidei regulam in sensu stricto; est tamen judicium 
dogmaticum quod servit ad dirigendos fideles in ordine fidei, prout Cardi- 
nales archiepiscopi et episcopi Parisiis a. 1728 congregati pronunciarunt 
de judiciis Ecclesiae qualificationes tantum respectivas continentibus.’ 
The Bull and also the Popes describe as dogmaticum 8. Sedis et universalis 
Ecclesiae decretum S. judicium: for example, Clement XIII. in the Brief 
of Jan. 23, 1765, to the Bishop of Liittich ; also the Sorbonne, in the De- 
cree of Dec. 15, 1729 (Du Plessis, t. iii. p. i. p. 184). 

* Denzinger, Enchirid. ed. iv. pp. 186-193, n. 477-550. 

4 Ib. p. 220 seq. n. 220. 

5 Ib. p. 302 seq. n. 881 seq. 

6 Ib. p. 333 seq. n. 1088 seq. 

7 Th. p. 348 seq. n. 1193 seq. 

8 Art. 11 ex Const. Inter cunctas, 1].c. p. 194, n. 555. 

® Cf. Bossuet, Sécond Ecrit sur le Livre de Mgr. Fénélon, n. 2. 

10 Pallavic. Hist. Conc. Trid. 1. i. ¢. xxi., and Tournely, Praelect. 
Theol. de Censuris, art. 1, t. iii., where many testimonies support this 
opinion. Eck observed at the disputation at Leipzig, 1519, with regard 
to the propositions of Huss condemned at Constance : ‘ Quoniam aliquam 
certe censuram merentur singulae et ex iis reliquis censuris (praeter no- 
tam haeresis) per disjunctionem a concilio inustis, nimirum vel esse erro- 
neas vel scandalosas vel temerarias et alia hujusmodi’ (Pallav. l.c. ¢. xvi. 
n. 9). Vide particularly Car. Du Plessis d’Argentré, Coll. de Nov. Errori- 
bus, Paris, 1724, t. i. Pp. ii. p. 53 seq. 

'! The letter of Cardinal Antonelli which accompanied the Syllabus 

VOL. I. Ee 


210 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





only speaks of errores ac perniciosas doctrinas, quae ab ipso (Summo: Pon- 
tifice) reprobatae ac proscriptae sunt. 


C3: 


It follows that we must not regard the contradictory of eaclu 
separate proposition condemned by the Syllabus as a dogma of 
the Church. A dangerous or offensive proposition may be as 
dangerous or offensive, whether the predicate be denied or 
affirmed. A clear though coarse example will make this plain. 
When Fr. Abraham a Santa Clara said in a sermon, ‘ Ladies 
who bare their necks are not worthy to be spat upon,’ he was 
called upon to retract, because it would apply to some of the 
persons at court. He is said to have replied by the contradic- 
tory proposition: ‘They aie worthy to be spat upon.” Whether 
the story be true or false, it is a good illustration of our mean- 
ing. 

The proposition of Quesnell was dangerous: and offensive 
when, treating excommunication as unjust and disobeying 
the teaching of the Church, he imagined it his duty to pro- 
pagate his heresy (prop. 91-93), and accused the Church of 
ignorance and tyranny in matters of faith (prop. 94-95). But 
it is impossible to derive from his condemnation the doctrine, 
that fear of unjust excommunication must sometimes (or always) 
deter us from the fulfilment of our duty. The twenty-fourth 
proposition of the Syllabus contains two negative errors: 1. 
The Church has no right of coercion ; 2. she has neither direct 
nor indirect temporal power. In rejecting this: second propo- 
sition the doctrine cannot be deduced that the Church has a 
direct and also an indirect temporal power, but only if is 
false to say that the Church has no temporal power, whether 
direct or indirect. Again, Berchtold is altogether wrong in 
saying that according to Pius IX. it is heresy to believe that 
the Popes have ever exceeded the limits of their power. That 
by no means follows from the twenty-third proposition of the: 
Syllabus.!- This proposition can be subdivided into three or, if . 
the Pope and the Council are to be divided, into six asser- 
tions: ‘1. The (@) Roman Popes and the (6) Ecumenica! Coun- 


The Syllabus as a whole. Bin 





cils have exceeded the limits of their power; 2. usurped the 
rights of princes ; and 3. erred in the definitions of doctrines of 
faith and morals.’ 

The first and second propositions do not refer to a truth 
revealed by God, but only to historical matters of fact, princi- 
pally of the Middle Ages ;? they cannot therefore be described 
as heretical propositions, but as insulting to the Church and 
the Holy See, as presumptuous and false ; in so far as they im- 
ply that unjust interferences and usurpations were habitual, and 
not merely occasional and exceptional, they are certainly quite 
untrue. The condemnations of the assertions 2a and 3a in no 
way necessitate the supposition that in the exercise of their 
power Popes have remained free from all faults and mistakes, 
especially in administrative and private matters. The Brief 
‘Multiplices inter’ of June 10, 1851, from which prop. 23 is 
taken, mentions the judgment of the Congregation of the Holy 
Office on the book of Vigil, but does not qualify each separate 
proposition contained in it.4 Ecclesiastical jurisdiction with 
regard to marriage, the right of confirming the election or no- 
mination of bishops, the claim to the free intercourse of the 
Pope with the bishops and the faithful, were given by Vigil as 
examples of how Popes and General Councils exceeded the just 
limits of their authority, and he had spoken in so mischievous 
and frivolous a manner that this alone would have justified the 
censure of these propositions. As regards the third assertion, in- 
asmuch as it denies the infallibility of General Councils it is 
plainly heretical ; and inasmuch as it unceremoniously denies 
Papal Infallibility, it could, before July 18, 1870, have been 
declared approximate to heresy, and at all events presumptuous 
and insulting to the Holy See.t Therefore the same condem- 
nation would not at all have suited each point of the twenty- 
third proposition, although each deserved one or other of the 
ecclesiastical censures. 

There can be no question of calling the whole Syllabus 
dogma, in the sense that all these propositions are heresies. 
The learned opponents of the Vatican Council must know this 
very well, even though their theological acquirements be some- 


212 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





what slender. Thus, for example, prop. 12 of the Syllabus, 
‘The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Congrega- 
tions hinder the progress of science,’ can be censured as false, 
presumptuous, scandalous, insulting to the Holy See and to the 
whole Church ; but not as heretical, since it does not imme- 
diately or directly militate against revelation nor the truths de- 
fined by the Church, and the Pope has never defined it as here- 
tical. 


So also prop. 38, ‘Many Roman Pontiffs have by their too 
arbitrary conduct contributed to the division of the Church into 
Eastern and Western,’ is not heretical, but a false assertion,° 
insulting to the Apostolic See. It is the same thing with Pro- 
fessor Nuytz’s condemned assertion,® that Boniface VIII. had 
first pronounced that the vow of celibacy taken at ordination 
made marriage null. That is historically false ; for the question 
had been settled long before by St. Thomas? and St. Bonaven- 
ture,§ and before these by the several Councils of the eleventh 
and twelfth centuries, and earlier still by the legislation of the 
Fast.!° It is likewise incorrect that the doctrine by which the 


Pope is compared to a sovereign prince was first authorised in 
the Middle Ages.?! 


1 Prop. 23: ‘The Roman Pontiffs and Ecumenical Councils have ex- 
ceeded the limits of their power, have usurped the rights of princes, 
and have even committed errors in defining matters of faith and morals.’ 

2 Fessler, Unfehlbarkeit, p. 35. 

5 The book is described as ‘ continens doctrinas et propositiones respec- 
tive scandalosas, falsas, temerarias, schismaticas, Romanis Pontificibus et 
Conciliis oecumenicis injuriosas [that exactly applies to the assertions 
we are considering], Ecclesiae potestatis, libertatis et jurisdictiones ever- 
sivas, erroneas, impias et haereticas.’ 

4 Cf. Prop. 29 Damn. 7 Dec. 1690, ab Alex. VIII. Denzinger, p. 345, 
n, 1186. 

5 Cf. Bennettis, de Privileg. B. Petri. p. ii. t. iii. p. 720 seq. 

6 Prop. 72 of Syllabus: ‘ Boniface VIII. is the first who declared that 
the vow of celibacy pronounced at ordination annuls marriage.’ 

7 Sum. 2, 2, q. 88, a. 7, 11. 

8 In Libr. sent. iv. d. 38, q. 2. 

9 Hefele, Conc. v. pp. 175, 260, 262, 319, 340, 391. 

10 Zsishman, Oriental. Eherecht, p. 475 seq. 

1 Prop. 34 of the Syllabus: ‘The doctrine of those who compare the 
Sovereign Pontiffto a free sovereignty acting in the Universal Church is a 
doctrine which prevailed in the Middle Ages only.’ 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 2 





Part IJ. Tue Propositions oF THE SYLLABUS. 


§ 1. Prop. 1-18, 77-79. § 2. Independence of the Church as a perfect 
society. § 3. State interference. § 4. Indirect negative power in 
religious matters. § 5. The Placet. § 6. Appeal from a spiritual to 
a temporal judge. § 7. Power of the Church over temporal matters. 
§ 8. Immunities. § 9. Instruction and education. § 10. Princes. 
Civil and ecclesiastical law. Ordination vows. § 11. Marriage. § 12. 
The family. Limits of State authority. § 13. Divergence of civil 
laws from ecclesiastical. § 14, 15. Non-intervention. § 16. Revolu- 
tion. § 17. Sovereignty of the people. § 18. Practical materialism. 
§ 19, 20. Liberalism. § 21. Errors of modern society. © § 22. Folly of 
the conclusions wrongly drawn from the Syllabus. 


we 

We are primarily concerned with those propositions of the 
Syllabus which treat of the authority of Church and State and 
their relations to each other. No one will maintain that the 
propositions 1-7 against pantheism, naturalism, and absolute 
rationalism are dangerous to the State, unless he identifies the 
modern State with these systems, denies any divine influence 
on the world, and considers Christianity itself a danger to the 
vitality of the State. Again, either propositions 8-14, con- 
cerning moderate rationalism, will not be considered dangerous; 
or Frohschammer’s science or philosophy must be considered in- 
dissoluble from modern States, and these must feel themselves 
appointed to enter the lists as its champion. 

The propositions about religious indifference and latitudi- 
narianism (15-18) will be spoken of in Essay XVIL., as well as 
the kindred propositions about modern Liberalism (77-79) ; 
and propositions 21-23 will also. be considered there and else- 
where. The fourth section refers to ecclesiastical condemnation 
of socialism, communism, secret societies, Bible societies, and of 
the clerico-liberal unions begun in Italy. The Popes have at 
all times pointed out the dangers which arise from secret socie- 
ties ; and many rulers refusing to give heed have too late expe- 
rienced their disastrous effects. When it was asserted that the 
Papal constitutions against the Carbonari and Freemasons were 
powerless where these societies were tolerated by the civil go- 


214 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





vernment,' the following facts were entirely overlooked, viz. 
that the excommunication attached to these constitutions is 
purely an internal action of the Church, and operates in the 
ecclesiastical sphere even where unsupported by civil disabili- 
ties; that the Church steps in as the real guardian of morals, 
when such brotherhoods, shrouding their superiors, their aims 
and objects, in deepest mystery, impose unbounded obligations 
by fearful oaths. The Church is obliged to oppose the Protest- 
ant Bible societies, on account of the propagation of defective 
and falsified translations and tracts contrary to the faith. 
Unions of the liberal clergy, as they were formed in Italy, fos- 
tered disobedience against the Pope and the bishops, propa- 
gated principles opposed to those taught by the Church, and 
proved themselves thoroughly schismatical, so that even the 
Italian Government, which they desired to serve, withdrew its 
support. 


1 Encyclica Quanta cura, § At vero alii of the Prop. ‘ constitutiones 
apostolicas, quibus damnantur clandestinae societates, sive in eis exigatur 
sive non exigatur juramentum de secreto servando, earumque asseclae et 
fautores anathemate muletantur, nullam habere vim in illis orbis regioni- 
bus, ubi ejusmodi aggregationes tolerantur a civili gubernio.’ 


§ 2. 

Offence was likewise taken at the idea that the Church claims 
recognition as a divinely authorised, true, perfect, and indepen- 
dent society ;! that she will not allow that temporal authority 
can determine what her rights are, and within what limits she 
may exercise them (prop. 19).? 

Supposing this proposition to be correct, the universality of 
the Church would be abolished, since different States could give 
her different rights and set arbitrary limits to her power. Either 
the Church has received a special and perpetual authority from 
Christ, in which case she cannot admit that the State has power 
at will to extend and retrench her authority, or she has not 
received such divine authority, and then all claim to it is un- 
tenable, the whole Church must be rejected, and no one can 
call himself a Catholic. And is this claim anything new on 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. oH HE 





the part of the Church? Do not all the works on canon law 
treat of the essential rights of the Church? Have not the 
Apostles and bishops exercised such rights before they met with 
recognition from the State?? Have not the Fathers of the 
Church already rejected with vehemence the interference of the 
civil power in the domain of ecclesiastical rights?# Has the 
Church ever admitted prop. 20: ‘ Ecclesiastical power must not 
be exercised without the permission and consent of the civil 
government’? Did the Apostles® recognise this proposition ? 
If they had, would not the conversion of the Roman Empire have 
been impossible? Would not the Church have become a mere 
servant of every government? That there may be particular 
circumstances in which it is advisable or necessary to have the 
consent of the civil government for this or that act of ecclesias- 
tical authority is quite a different thing from the general prin- 
ciple that this consent and permission is absolutely necessary in 
all cases. 

The bishops of the Church have not received any of their 
privileges from the civil authority,° nor can this authority depose 
or appoint bishops.’ The Church with her divinely appointed 
hierarchy does not receive her right of existence from the State ; 
she was established by God by the side of the State and in 
spite of the State, at a time when the State was hostile to her. 
As the Church has the right of existence from herself and not 
from the State, she must in herself have the right of possessing 
and acquiring property. The Church can as little part with 
her divine right as she can change the institution of the primacy 
ordained by Christ, and transfer it from the successors of St. 
Peter to any other bishop,® or as that there can be Catholic 
national Churches independent of the Roman Pontiffs. 


1 Vid. supra, pp. 24, 25. ~ 

2 Syll. Prop. 19: ‘The Church is not a true and perfect and inde- 
pendent society; she does not enjoy peculiar and perpetual rights con- 
ferred upon her by her Divine Founder, but it appertains to the civil power 
to define what are the rights and limits within which the Church may 
exercise authority.’ 

* Phillips, Kirchenrecht, ii. § 111, pp. 550 seq. 554. 

* Hosius Cordub. Ep. ad Const. ap, Athan. Hist. Arian. § 41 (Opp. i. 


216 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





p. 745, Migne). Athanas. l.c. § 52 (ib. p. 756). Basil. ap. Theod. H. E. 
iv. 17,19. Ambros. Ep. 51, n. 5 seq. de Obitu Theod. n. 34. Soz. vii. 
25. Many proofs of this may be found in Mamachi, Antiqu. t. iv. 
p. 68 seq. 

5 §. Hilar. adv. Auxent.: ‘Quibus nam suffragiis ad praedicandum 
Evangelium Apostoli missi sunt? Quibus adjuti potestatibus Christum 
praedicabant?....Anne aliquam sibi assumebant e palatio auctorita- 
tem? Edictisque regis Paulus Christo Ecclesiam congregavit? Nerone 
se, credo, aut Vespasiano aut Decio patrocinantibus tuebatur ?’ 

6 Syll. Prop. 25: ‘In addition to the authority inherent in the epis- 
copate, further temporal power is granted to it by the civil authority 
either expressly or tacitly, which power is on that account also. revocable 
by the civil authority whenever it pleases.’ 

7 Syll. Prop. 50: ‘ The lay authority possesses as inherent in itself the 
right of presenting bishops, and may réquire of them that they take pos- 
session of their dioceses before having received canonical institution and 
the apostolical letters of the Holy See.’ Prop. 51: ‘And, further, the 
lay government has the right of deposing bishops from their pastoral 
functions, and is not bound to obey the Roman Pontiff in those things 
which relate to bishops’ sees and the institution of bishops.’ 

8 Syll. Prop. 26: ‘ The Church has not the natural and legitimate right 
of acquisition and possession.’ 

® Syll. Prop. 35: ‘There would be no obstacle to the sentence of a 
General Council or the act of all the universal peoples transferring the 
Pontifical Sovereignty from the Bishop and city of Rome to some other 
bishopric and some other city.’ 

0 Syll. Prop. 37: ‘ National Churches can be established after being 
withdrawn and separated from the authority of the Roman Pontiff.’ 
Prop. 36: ‘ The definition of a National Council does not admit of any 
subsequent discussion, and the civil power can settle an affair as decided 
by such Naticnal Council.’ 


§3. 

Other propositions appear even more important, in particu- 
lar prop. 44: ‘The civil authority can interfere in matters 
relating to religion, morality, and spiritual government. There- 
fore it has control over the instructions for the guidance of con- 
sciences, published conformably with their mission by the pastors 
of the Church ; indeed it can decree in the matter of adminis- 
tering the holy Sacraments and the dispositions necessary for 
their reception.’ This is purely a religious question, in which 
surely civil authority has no right to interfere. In such cases 
reference was made to the example of King Ozias,! who was 
punished for exercising priestly functions (2 Par. xxvi. 1-21).? 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 2 17 





The express mention of the direction ‘ for the guidance of con- 
sciences,’ as well as the mention of the administration of the 
Sacraments, shows that it is primarily a question of moral theo- 
logy,* with which certainly the State cannot mterfere. If the 
question is asked: May not the State protect morality by penal 
laws, and not simply execute ecclesiastical punishments, the 
Syllabus does not forbid us to answer in the affirmative, es- 
pecially if Christian and not heathen morality be presupposed ; 
morality makes common ground between Church and State. 
These two must not be hostile to each other; they should 
work in harmony; and this is why the Church rejects* the prin- 
ciple of the separation of Church and State. The teaching of 
the Church can never be detrimental to the well-being of society 
or of the State.® 


1 Innoe. ITI. 1. viii. Ep. 5, pp. 562, 563, ad Archiep. Cant.: ‘Si dili- 
genter attenderent, quod Ozias rex Judae fuit in facie lepra percussus pro 
eo, quod indutus Ephod incensum adolere praesumsit, non praesumerent 
saeculares super rebus ecclesiasticis, quae ad ipsos non spectant, jurisdic- 
tionem aliquam exercere.’ Thus even earlier, Petrus Bles. Ep. 10 (Migne, 
cevii. p. 30), the Glossa Administrationis to c. v. Imperium, d.10, and 
others. Hosius, ap. Athan. ad Mon. § 41, alludes to this, and Chrysosto- 
mus, de Verb. Isai. c. vi. n. 1 (Migne, lvi. p. 68), and Facundus of Her- 
miane (pro Defens. iii. capit. 1. xii. c. iii.) treat of it. 

2 Protestant Version, 2 Chron. xxvi. 1-21. 

* Cf. Flor. Riess, Staat und Kirche. 


* Syll. Prop. 55: ‘The Church ought to be separated from the State, 
and the State from the Church.’ 


5 Syll. Prop. 40: ‘The teaching of the Catholic Church is opposed to 
the well-being and interests of society.’ . 


§ 4. 


The forty-first proposition, that the civil government, even 
when exercised by a non-Catholic sovereign, possesses an in- 
direct negative power over religious matters, is, in the sense 
used by Professor Nuytz of Turin, who propounded this pro-— 
position, certainly of a kind to deserve ecclesiastical censure. 
For, first, this ‘negative’ power is something very positive, 
viz. giving to civil rulers the right at pleasure to render in- 
operative or to hinder all that belongs to spiritual govern- 
ment; it includes all the measures which were executed in 


218 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





the kingdom of Sardinia against the Church from 1848 to 
1851, from which she had to endure that the State should 
arbitrarily determine what was and what was not under her 
dominion. Secondly, it is an assertion which far exceeds 
Gallicanism, which at least presupposes the ‘most Christian’ 
king, and does not adjudge such a power to a non-Catholic 
prince. Thirdly, from this assertion is derived not only the 
right of ‘exsequatur’ or ‘placet,’ but also the right of ‘ appel 
comme d’abus,’ which the Church never has acknowledged and 
never can acknowledge. ‘The Church can never admit that ec- 
clesiastical ordinances receive their validity from the civil power ; 
that apostolical letters, even apostolical dispensations, require 
the sanction of the State to make them valid ;? that the civil 
power has the right to prevent the free intercourse of the faith- 
ful and bishops with the Head of the Church. 


' Riess, le. § 125 seq. p. 120 seq. Opinion of the Wiirzburg Theol. 
Faculty of July 7, 1869, ad ii. § 38, p. 32. 

2 Syll. Prop. 28, 29: ‘Bishops have not the right of promulgating 
even their apostolical letters without the sanction of the government’ 
(28). ‘Dispensations granted by the Roman Pontiff must be considered 
null, unless they have been requested by the civil government’ (29). 


§ 5. 


Both these ‘ rights’ are of quite recent origin. The Placet 
(placetum regium), by which the promulgation and execution of 
ecclesiastical publications were made dependent on the approval 
of the State, appeared in many countries, and was first raised to 
an abiding measure,! at the time of the great schism of 1378. 
Urban VI. at that time allowed several prelates to submit Bulls 
and Briefs to civil officials for acknowledgment before allowing 
them to be published in their dioceses, on account of the 
numerous Papal documents propagated by the antipope. In 
many places efforts were made to raise this temporary con- 
cession into a custom, and orders were given against apos- 
tolic documents being carried into effect which had not been 
acknowledged by the forms ‘ placet,’ ‘vidimus, &c., where- 
fore Martin V. published a special Bull? against it. But 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 219 





soon afterwards the measures became more frequent and by 
degrees more extended. Several Popes‘ protested against it, 
and lastly the Vatican Council’ also. 

And with perfect right. Had the civil power been allowed 
the privilege of making the publication of the laws of the 
Church depend on its good pleasure and consent, the Church 
would be governed not by a divinely appointed hierarchy, but 
by a temporal sovereignty. For if the necessary publication of 
every law were limited by another power and dependent on its 
good-will, this power in fact would become the legislator, and 
in changing its duty of protection into a right of ratification 
could refuse its consent to any ecclesiastical resolution which 
was displeasing to it.6 The Placet rigorously carried out would 
have destroyed the unity of the Church, and have led to reli- 
gious anarchy and to the absolutism of the State.” It proves a 
great aversion to and distrust of the Church, as if she were most 
dangerous to the State ; it cannot proceed from the right of pro- 
tection, to which it is all the more opposed, that the State can- 
not and ought not to protect what it believes to be hurtful and 
pernicious.* The Placet is an anomaly in modern times, when 
States admit no force in any ecclesiastical censure, proclaim liberty 
of conscience, of association, and of the press, and promise 
equal rights to all men.® Furthermore, like Proteus, the Placet 
assumes different characters, has its basis now on this and now 
on that pretension of State power, and receives sometimes greater 
and sometimes less extension.!? Theory as well as practice, 
literature as well as legislation, have made various exceptions 
in its application: here and there the decisions of the Roman 
Penitentiary in secret cases of conscience, publications con- 
taining purely spiritual matters, dogmatic Bulls,!2 dispensations, 
episcopal Lenten pastorals, were not considered as coming under 
the Placet ; whilst in other places every kind of ecclesiastical 
publication required its authorisation, even those constitutions 
which had already received the Placet ‘ each time they are used,’ 
as was determined by the edict for the ecclesiastical province of 
the Upper Rhine, January 30, 1830, in which edict State in- 
lerference seems to have culminated.!* 


220 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





The Placet is quite inefficacious when a dogmatic definition 
is concerned, for this binds the conscience \independently of a 
formal proclamation. As soon as the faithful know ofa defini- 
tion in matters of faith and morals made by the Church, they 
are bound in conscience by it. ‘The declaration and explanation 
of revealed truth can no more depend upon the State in our 
times than in the heathen Roman Empire. Powerful States 
and powerful rulers have had no need of the Placet ; even now 
many States do not know of it, and lose thereby none of their 
sovereignty. 


1 In England it was already pretty well in use in the 11th and 12th 
centuries, in Portugal in the 13th. Papius, Zur Geschichte des Placet, 
Archiv seq. Kath. Kirchenrecht, 1867, vol. xviii. p. 166 seq. 

2 Const. Quoad antidota, in which the above is given. 

3 Papius, l.c. p. 170 seq. Phillips, iii. § 135, p. 353 seq. 

4 Roscovany, Monum. t. i. pp. 117, 118, 203, 205, 227, 300. 

* Const. Pastor aeternus, c¢. iii. § Porro ex suprema. 

® Droste of Bischering, Ueber den Frieden unter der Kirche und den 
Staaten, p. 106 seq. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, ii. § 112, p. 565. Cf. V. 
Haller, Restauration der St. Wissenschaft, vol. iv. § 408. Beidtel, Das 
Canonische Recht, pp. 288-290. Tarquini, Del regio Placet Dissert. 
Roma, 1852. 

7 Rotteck, Staatslexicon, vol. ix. p. 299. 

8 Phillips, l.c. p. 566. Beidtel, p. 294. 

® Riess, l.c. p. 185, § 143. V. Papius, le. p. 233 seq. 237. Beidtel, 
p. 292. 

10 Beidtel, p.289. Cf. also Gewart’s Opuse. contra Espenii Doctrinam 
de Placeto regio, Lovan. 1830. 

1 Papius, pp. 217, 218. The old parliament had excluded these from 
the Placet, the organic articles included them in it. The decree of the 
Austrian Court of July 23, 1782, had exempted the publications of the 
Penitentiary from the Placet, ib. p. 208. 

12 Papius, p. 203 seq. 

13 Papius, p. 222. 

4 Van Espen, Tract. de Promulg. Leg. Eccl. p. v. c. ii. § 1: ‘ Itaque 
nequaquam dependet a publicatione vel executione decreti seu Bullae dog- 
maticae, ut quis dogmati assensum fidei praebere teneatur, eo quod prae- 
veniendo omnem publicationem et executionem teneatur quis fide divina 
credere dogma, quod ipsi sufficienter constat ex divina revelatione esse 
traditum.’ Cf. De Marca, de Cone. 1. ii. c. x. § 9. 


§ 6. 
The right of appeal from spiritual to temporal judges, granted 
on account of pretended abuses, is of the same character as the: 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 221 





Placet, and was rejected with it in the Syllabus.! The ‘appel 
d’abus’ spread from France? into other countries. This alleged 
right makes the civil power superior to the spiritual, and sub- 
stitutes for possible abuse of ecclesiastical power an actual and 
continuous abuse of civil power. Every legislator is the inter- 
preter of his laws ;° as in civil matters there exists the right of 
appeal from lower to higher civil judges, so also in the Church 
there is a canonical series of appeals from lower to higher spiri- 
tual judges.* The ecclesiastical judge has to decide accord- 
ing to ecclesiastical law, which is independent from the State, 
and therefore not subject to the interpretation of a civil judge, 
who decides according to civil law, and has no legal title to 
guard the laws of the Church. If the spiritual judge were to 
overstep his boundary and encroach on civil jurisdiction, the 
State would naturally have the right to reject the judgment and 
prevent its execution.® But this is beside the present question. 
No appeal takes place, but the State simply declares the judgment 
as proceeding from an incompetent tribunal to be null and void. 
If however the spiritual judge contines himself within the limits 
of his authority, the civil power has no right to interfere. No 
such right comes from the Church, by whom, on the contrary, 
interference has been forbidden most stringently ;° nor from the 
nature of the civil authority, which is only competent in its 
own sphere, and cannot legislate for the Church, cannot bestow 
spiritual jurisdiction, nor even decide with certainty concerning 
its abuse. Moreover, the abuse of a power is no reason for its 
ceasing to exist, or for its becoming subject to another power, 
otherwise no power would be ‘possible amongst men.’ In France 
this measure, which has been. maintained by the ‘ organic arti- 
cles,’ has practically only led to the greatest inconvenience, 
violence, and absurdity.§ 


1 Syll. Prop. 41: ‘The civil government, even when exercised by an 
infidel sovereign, possesses an indirect and negative power over religious 
affairs. It, therefore, possesses not only the right called that of exse- 
quatur, but also that of the (so-called) appellatio ab abusw’ [appel comme 
d’abus}. 

2 See Essay XV. on ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 

3 L. ult. Cod. i. 14, de Leg.; ¢. xxxi. de Sent. Excom. v. 39. 

* Phillips, Kirchenrecht, p. 570 seq. Beidtel, p. 285 seq. 


222 The Syllabus and Modern States. 








5 Cf. De Marca, de Cone. I. iv. c. xxvii. Walter, § 46c, p. 91. 

6 Conc. Antioch. 341, c. xi. 12 (c. ii. C. xxi. gq. 5). Cone. Agath. et 
Greg. M. (ib. c. i. 6). Martin V. Const. i. Febr. 1428, Ad reprimendas, 
Bull. Rom. ed. Rom. iii. ii. p. 459. Roseovany, Mon. i. pp. 109-111. 
Sixt. IV. Const. 1471. Leo XII. Ep. ad Gall. Reg. a. 1824. Trid. Sess. 
xxv. de Ref. ¢c. iii. partially refers to this. 

7M. Liberatore, l.c. c. iii. art. 5, p. 270. 

8 Cf. Cormenin, in the Encyclopédie du xix. Siécle, v. Concordat (also 
Liberatore, l.c. pp. 273-278, 308, 309). 
S 7. 

The Church, asa visible body, cannot consent to be refused 
every kind of judicial capacity and dominion over temporal and 
material things. The twenty-fourth proposition! is in two parts: 
one denies to the Church that coercive and penal authority which 
she has always exercised.? Deprived of them she would have 
no external court of justice (forum externum), no censures, no 
punishments, and would be in a worse position than any private 
society, which by means of statutes can inflict fines, or otherwise 
punish negligent or disobedient members. The other part denies 
all temporal power to the Church, whether direct or indirect. 

The Church has exercised a direct temporal power in the 
States of the Church and in the possession of temporal goods 
and privileges ; she justly rejects the assertion that the ministers 
of the Church, and the Pope in particular, ought to be excluded 
from all charge and dominion over temporal affairs ;? that amongst 
Catholics it ought to be very questionable whether the civil 
power is compatible with the spiritual in the Head of the Church ;* 
and that the abolition of the temporal dominion of the Holy See 
would largely contribute to the liberty and happiness of the 
Church.’ The groundlessness of these opinions has often been 
proved,® and it seems to have fallen to our days to give a proof 
that shall be visible to all eyes. Indirectly the Church must 
exercise her power over temporal things; for it is her duty to 
admonish the faithful on the one hand not to misuse their earthly 
possessions, nor squander them on unworthy objects, but to em- 
ploy their superfluity in favour of those in need; and on the 
other hand, when in poverty to have recourse to patience, to 
limit their desire for enjoyment, to be frugal and sparing.’ She 
must oppose the service of Mammon, must teach her children to 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. Zae 





use temporal things, so that they lose not those things which are 
eternal ;> she must protect her temporal goods, and forbid sacri- 
lege under pain of censure ;* she must exercise her office where 
temporal matters trench upon her sphere. To say she has not 
any temporal power (potestas ulla temporalis) is to drive her 
from her place in the actual world, where her task lies ; to de- 
prive her of those possessions which she defends as useful and 
necessary to her for its accomplishment, which she has acquired 
with perfect right, and maintains without intermixing the 
spiritual and temporal order.!° For the very reason that the 
Church is not an invisible institution, but a visible, true, and 
perfect society for men and amongst men, she is bound to engage 
in temporal affairs as far as her aim requires. Exterior and in- 
terior things both belong to her worship as to her life. If she 
were limited to what is purely interior she would not even be 
in a position to administer her Sacraments, and would evaporate 
into a purely spiritual society. 


1 Syll. Prop. 24: ‘ The Church has not the power of availing herself of 
force or any direct or indirect temporal power.’ 

2 See Essay XVII. on the Church and liberty of conscience. 

3 *The ministers of the Church and the Roman Pontiff ought to be 
absolutely excluded from all charge and dominion over temporal affairs.’ 
Syll. Prop. 27, from the Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

4+ *The children of the Christian and Catholic Church are not agreed 
upon the compatibility of the temporal and spiritual power.’ Syll. Prop. 75, 
from the Apostolic Brief Ad Apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

5 «The abolition of the temporal power of which the Apostolic See is 
possessed would contribute in the greatest degree to the liberty and pros- 
perity of the Church.’ Syll. Prop. 76, from the Allocution Quibus quan- 
tisque, April 20, 1849, on Mazzini’s Roman Republic. 

® Pignatelli, Consult. Can. t. iii. Cons. 6, n. 15 seq. p. 16 seq. 

7 The Encyclical of Dec. 8, 1864, pronounces against the Prop.: ‘ Ee- 
clesiam nihil debere decernere, quod obstringere possit fidelium conscien- 
tias in ordine ad usum rerum temporalium.’ 

8 Collect for 3d Sunday after Pentecost: ‘Ut te rectore, te duce sic 
transeamus per bona temporalia, ut non amittamus aeterna.’ 

® Cf. Opinions of the Wiirzburg Theol. Faculty of July 7, 1869, ad ii. 
§ 39, 40, pp. 33, 34. 

10 Before the above-quoted proposition the Encyclical Quanta cura 
censures this other: ‘ Excommunicationem a Concilio Tridentino et Ro- 
manis Pontificibus latam in eos, qui jura possessionesque Ecclesiae inva- 
dunt, et usurpant, niti confusione ordinis spiritualis, ordinisque civilis ac 
politici ad mundanum dumtaxat bonum prosequendum.’ 


° 


2O7 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





§ 8. 

The immunity of the clergy, stated in the Syllabus, also gives 
great offence.! But the assertion, ‘The immunity of the Church 
and of ecclesiastical persons derives its origin from civil 
law,’? must already have been condemned, inasmuch as it con- 
tradicts the Council of Trent, according to which this immunity 
is established by the ordinance of God and canon law. This is 
expressly added to the Brief of June 10, 1851, from which 
the proposition was taken.? Moreover, the Church and theology 
have only opposed the theory that ecclesiastical immunities were 
entirely derived from the civil law.4 With perfect reason the 
Church holds fast to her rights, and nothing is more natural 
than the rejection of the proposition : ‘ Ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
tion for the temporal causes of the clergy, whether civil or 
criminal, ought by all means to be abolished, even without the 
concurrence and against the protest of the Holy See ;> or of this 
one: ‘ Without any violation af natural law or equity personal 
immunity exonerating the clergy from military service may be 
abolished ; its abolition is called for by civil progress, especially 
in a community constituted upon principles of liberal govern- 
ment.’ Butif ever anything were a violation of natural law and 
equityit is the forcible drawing of the clergy into military service ; 
it is totally opposed to their office, renders the education neces- 
sary for their difficult vocation still harder, and even impossible, 
deprives the Church of the necessary number of ministers, and 
in many places leaves Christian people without pastors. The 
necessity for exempting ecclesiastics from military service has 
been recognised even by non-Catholic governments, and is re- 
quired by the very nature of the case. It is neither just nor 
wise to make unsuitable demands upon a body which in its own 
way is useful to the State, merely for the sake of a mechanical 
and external universal equality, which from purely natural 
reasons can never be attained. By drawing the clergy into bar- 
racks the esteem in which the priesthood is held, the dignity of 
religion, the exercise of worship, the education of those desirous 
of entering the priesthood, the influence and care of the Church 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 225 





over her ministers would all materially suffer; it is therefore a 
great injustice, and most disadvantageous to Christian people, 
who have never opposed this ‘ privilege’ of immunity, and who, 
moreover, have even considered it necessary and a matter of 
course. 

Holy Scripture says no one can serve two masters (Matt. 
vi. 24) ; priests remain unmarried to serve God better and un- 
dividedly (1 Cor. vii. 32, 33); soldiers of Christ (2 Tim. ii. 3) 
cannot also be soldiers of the world, nor involve themselves in 
secular concerns (ib. iv.); especially must they kill no one 
(1 Tim. iii. 3; Tit. i. 7). The Church has, on grounds taken 
from Scripture, forbidden her clergy to bear arms and engage in 
war ;! and even the Liberals of our day acknowledge she is right, 
by deriding the warlike bishops of the Middle Ages, many of 
whom only took the field to protect their territory. Military 
service presents an ecclesiastical impediment to ordination, from 
the want it involves of the necessary meekness of heart en- 
joined by divine command.’ How is it possible to abolish the 
exemption of the clergy from military service ‘without any 
violation of natural law and equity’? The abolition of a free 
Spiritual jurisdiction would be less absurd, as not in itself and 
in the same way contradicting the natural law; wherefore in 
this concessions have from time to time been made, even by 
Popes. It only follows from the thirty-first proposition that in 
a country where till then the Church had entire jurisdiction over 
ecclesiastics the civil power is not justified in abolishing such 
jurisdiction simply by its own act, without the consent of the 
Head of the Church, or without paying regard to his protest, 
however reasonable. This not merely shows disdain of the 
Church, but violates her existing rights. Still less can the civil 
power simply by its own authority abolish Concordats, which 
guarantee such rights.® 

1 Among others to Mr. Gladstone, Expostulation, p.17. [TR. ] 

2 Syll. Prop. 30. 

5 Cf. the Ratisbon edition of the Encyclical and Syllabus, p. 59. 

‘ Vide supra, pp. 38-40. 

5 Byll. Prop. 31, Alloc. of Sept. 27, 1852, against New Granada, and 
of Dec. 15, 1856, against Mexico. In 1521 the Sorbonne described the 


VOL. I. Q 


226 The Syllabus and Modern States. 








following proposition of Luther’s, ‘Si imperator vel principes revocar 
libertatem datam personis et rebus ecclesiasticorum, non potest eis resisti 
sine peccato et impietate,’ to be ‘ falsa, impia, schismatica, libertatis eccle- 
siasticae enervativa ac impietatis tyrannicae excitativa et nutritiva’ (Du 
Plessis, t.i. Pp. ii. p. 373, tit. 17). We have lately heard this proposition of 
Luther publicly repeated in a tribune. 

6 Syll. Prop. 32, from the letter of Sept. 29, 1864, to the Archbishop 
of Monreale, concerning the new Italian law, which was even described as 
hard and unjust by General La Marmora. In Piedmont, in 1854, the 
number of clergy who were not bound by the conscription was reduced to 
one for every 20,000 souls. The new law abolished every exemption of the 
priesthood from military service. 

Cava O.edist. OO)". Called. jos Ca ave ids O00 <C...15 IVs Gs DL Cs 
xxiii. q. 8; c. ii. de Vita et Honest. Cler. iii. 1, Nicol. i. Ep. 27 (Mansi, 
xv. 291). Thomassin, p. iii. 1, i. c. xviii. n. 4 seq.; c. xx. n. 8, 10 seq. ; 
e: Ixxvam. seq. 

8 Phillips, K. R. i. § 50, p. 488 seq. 

® Syll. Prop. 48: ‘The lay power has the authority to rescind, declare 
and render null solemn conventions or concordats relating to the use of 
rights appertaining to ecclesiastical immunity, without the consent of the 
Apostolic See, and even in spite of its protest.’ 


ovo: 

A further set of propositions refers to education in general, 
and in particular to that of the clergy. They are the following: 
‘33. It does not appertain exclusively to ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
tion, by any proper and inherent right, to direct the instruction 
of theological subjects! 45. The entire direction of public 
schools in which the youth of Christian States are educated, ex- 
cept (to a certain extent) in the case of episcopal seminaries, may 
and must appertain to the civil power, and belong to it so far that 
no other authority whatsoever shall be recognised as having any 
right to interferein the discipline of the schools, the arrangements 
of the studies, the taking of degrees, or the choice and approval 
of the teachers.2 46. Further even, in clerical seminaries the 
mode of study to be adopted must be submitted to the civil au- 
thority.’ 47. The best theory of civil society requires that popular 
schools open to the children of all classes, and generally all public 
institutes intended for instruction in letters and philosophy, and 
for conducting the education of the young, should be freed from all 
ecclesiastical authority, government, and interference, and should 
be completely subjected to the civil and political power, in con- 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 227 





formity with the will of rulers and the prevalent opinions of the 
age. 48, This system of instructing youth, which consists in 
separating it from the Church, and in teaching it exclusively the 
knowledge of natural things and the natural ends of life, may be 
perfectly approved by Catholics. Two proposals are here cen- 
sured : the first abandons schools exclusively to the direction of 
the State, and withdraws them from the influence of the Church, 
without however assailing their Christian character; the second 
destroys their Christian character by separating them from re- 
ligion and the Church, and provides a merely secular worldly 
education. It is the duty of the Church to oppose both these 
proposals, and she can do so without violating any civil right ; 
whilst the State in enforcing them greatly prejudices the rights 
both of the Church and of individual Catholics. 

1 The letter to the Archbishop of Munich declares positively: ‘ Ad 
quam (potestatem ecclesiasticam) proprio ac nativo jure unice pertinet 
advigilare ac dirigere theologicarum praesertim rerum doctrinam.’ 

* Cf. Reiss, Der Moderne Staat und die Christliche Schule, p. 6 seq. 

3 This occurred in the 8. American republics, to which the Allocution 
Nunquam fore, Dec. 15, 1856, referred. 


+ Both the latter propositions are taken from the letter to Archbishop 
Hermann of Freiburg, July 14, 1864. Riess, l.c. p. 12 seq. 


S10) 


Proposition 54,! which has many adherents in our time, is 
much more plausible. The Church, it is said, by condemning 
this proposition becomes the judge of all measures of govern- 
ment. ‘The censured proposition came from Francis of Paul G. 
Vigil, concerning whom the Papal letter of June 10, 1851, thus 
speaks: ‘ Kings and other princes who by baptism have becone 
members of the Church he withdraws from the jurisdiction of 
the Church, exactly as though they were pagan kings, and as if 
in spiritual and ecclesiastical matters Christian princes were not 
the sons and subjects of the Church ; nay, confounding heavenly 
with earthly things, sacred with profane, high with low in a 
monstrous manner,” he is not afraid of teaching that in litigated 
questions of jurisdiction the secular power stands higher than 
the Church, which is the pillar and the ground of the truth’ 


228 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





(1 Tim. iii. 15). Is it possible seriously to assert that Catholic 
princes are exempt from the jurisdiction of the Church in spi- 
ritual and ecclesiastical matters? In that case they must also 
have ceased to be members and sons of the Church, or to belong 
to the kingdom of Christ, which is quite inadmissible.? Can it: 
be further maintained that in questions of ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
tion princes are superior to the Church? Ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
tion only extends over spiritual things ; were the Church to ac- 
knowledge the sovereign of the State as her superior, the inde- 
pendence of the spiritual power would be lost, the reigning prince: 
would be the supreme bishop, as with Protestants, and Casaro- 
papism would be established.* But if the decision of questions of 
jurisdiction were referred to the borderland between Church and 
State, Vigil’s assertion of the superiority of princes overthe Church 
would coincide with the assertion of J. N. Nuytz,> condemned 
in proposition 42: ‘In the case of conflicting laws between the 
two powers, the civil law ought to prevail.’ This proposition, re- 
peated times without number, is certainly false : were it true, the 
first Christians should unconditionally have obeyed the laws of 
the heathen emperor against Christendom and renounced the 
faith ; the martyrs would have been rebels, their heroism criminal 
madness ; the fixed principles of ecclesiastical legislation would 
have to yield to fluctuating State laws, different in every land, 
and the Church would no longer be able to maintain a single 
point.® If religious order takes precedence of political order, the 
laws of the Church cannot be secondary to the laws of the 
State.” The Church is the interpreter of the divine law, and as 
such must claim superiority.8 But, it might be objected, every 
law of the Church is not a law of God, neither are all the laws 
of the Church founded on the laws of God; there are laws of 
discipline in the Church, which admit of change. Certainly; but 
it is nevertheless wrong to assert the superiority of the civil law 
in every case, for this also is changeable, and in a still higher 
degree. A civil law relating to purely spiritual matters oversteps 
the power of the civil legislator, neither is the discipline of the 
clergy within his province.® Discipline, in many parts, is so 
closely connected with dogma as to be inseparable from it.1° 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 229 





In a conflict, that power generally has the right whose end in 
respect to the matter in dispute is the most important ; and 
regard has always to be paid in the particular case to the 
magnitude of the obligation, to the difference between affirma- 
tive and negative laws, to the greater or less the necessity, and 
in general to the doctrines of morality concerning conflicting 
duties.11_ The Church has often in a conciliatory manner de- 
clared herself ready to modify,!* and has modified, laws of minor 
importance at the proposal or demand of the State, which has 
here an easy remedy for its grievances. In the course of his- 
torical development many matters once of a purely spiritual 
character are so no longer ; but for such cases the civil govern- 
ment cannot legislate alone ; it must come to an understanding 
with the Church about the desired modifications of ecclesiastical 
discipline, and must still recognise the Church as independent 
in her own province.!* An example is afforded by ecclesiastical 
legislation concerning the requisite age for taking the solemn 
vows of religious profession, The decrees of the Council of 
Trent! on this subject were disapproved by many civil govern- 
ments, who even made other regulations contrary to the personal 
freedom of Catholic subjects and to the rights of the Church. 
Pius IX. considered their objections as far as they were reason- 
able, and prescribed a more advanced age for religious profes- 
sion,!6 but with perfect justice he censured the assertion: ‘The 
(civil) government has of itself the right to alter the age pre- 
scribed by the Church for religious profession, both of men 
and women, and may enjoin upon all religious establishments to 
admit no person to take solemn vows without its permission’ 
(prop. 52).!7 State interference in the religions life has, under 
the influence of an antichristian spirit, very often led to the 
complete destruction of religious orders, which are so beneficial 
to the Church. So it has been in South America and Italy, and 
the assertions made: ‘The laws for the protection of religious es- 
tablishments and for securing their rights and duties ought to be 
abolished , nay more, the civil government may lend its assist- 
ance to all who desire to quit the religious life which they have 
undertaken, and to break their vows. The government may also 


2.30 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





suppress religious orders, collegiate churches, and'simple benefices, 
even those belonging to private patronage, and submit their goods: 
and revenues to the administration and disposal of the civil 
power’ (prop. 53).18 When the Pope opposes such assertions, 
which are put into practice as soon as made, surely he is only 
protecting purely ecclesiastical rights. Religious orders, who 
have done so much good, especially in South America and in 
Italy, helping and consoling the poor, and showing them a bright 
example of voluntary poverty, have, by observing the evangelical 
counsels, and practising the virtues of obedience, chastity, and 
poverty, given unpardonable offence to the enemies of Christianity, 
who in hating them hate Christ Himself. Unworthy members 
of religious orders are therefore incited by these enemies of 
Christianity to revolt. Those in power are urged to suppress. 
monastic institutions, seeking thereby to make it impossible for 
any to follow their vocation to a more perfect life. This is a 
grievous encroachment upon individual religious liberty.19 With 
regard to the suppression of simple benefices, collegiate churches, 
and religious houses, Popes have often made great concessions: 
to the civil government, and have taken into consideration any 
objections that were advanced ; but as the establishment of such 
institutions strictly belongs to the Church, they can only be 
abolished by her, and for canonical reasons. 

1 ¢ Kings and princes are not only exempt from the jurisdiction of the 
Church, but are superior to the Church in litigated questions of juris- 
diction.’ 

2 Vigil did not distinguish between king as a man and as a sovereign, 
but absolutely asserted the exemption of kings from the Church’s authority 
on account of their royal dignity. 

3 Ambros. de Basil. tradend: ‘Imperator bonus intra Keclesiam, non 
supra Ecclesiam.’ Joh. VIII. in c. xi. d. 96: ‘Si imperator Catholicus 
est .... filius est non praesul Ecclesiae.’ 

4 Concerning this, John VIII. says, l.c.: ‘ Ad sacerdotes Deus voluit, 
quae Ecclesiae disponendae sunt, pertinere, non ad saeculi potestates.’ 
Cf. Joh. Dam. Or. ii. de Imag. n.17. Theod. Stud. 1. ii. Ep. 129. 

5 Brief of Aug. 22, 1851, Ad Apostolicae. 

6 Chilianeum, vol. vi. p. 398. 

7 Nicol. I. c. i. d. 10: ‘Lex imperatorum non est supra legem Dei, sed 
subtus. Imperiali judicio non possunt ecclesiastica jura dissolvi.’ Cf. 


Ambros. in Can. 21, ¢. xxiii. q. 5. 
8 Phillips, K. R. ii. § 109, p. 530, § 110, p. 538. 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. Cane at 





® The assertion of the king’s advocate, Francois Grimauldet, n. 6, ‘Le 
second point de la religion est en la police et discipline sacerdotale, sur le 
quel les rois et princes chrétiens ont puissance d’icelle dresser, mettre en 
ordre et réformer icelle corrompue,’ was condemned in 1560 by the Theo- 
logical Faculty of Paris as a ‘propositio falsa, schismatica, potestatis 
ecclesiasticae enervativa et haeretica, et probationes ad illam sunt 
impertinentes’ (D’Argentré, Collect. Judiciorum, t. ii. p. i. Paris, 1728, 
pp. 291, 292). 

10 Brief of Pius VI. to Card. Rochefoucault, March 10, 1791, § Sed 
priusquam. ed. sep. p. 24. 

1 Kreittmayer, in Cod. Civil. Maximil. p.i. ¢. ii. n. 13. 

12 H.g. Gregory VII. supra. 

13 Phillips, K. R. ii. § 110, p. 540 seq. 

1* Card. Antonelli to the Sardinian consul, July 19, 1850 (Acta Pii IX. 
vol. ii. p. 166): ‘La sola Chiesa, la quale non ha limiti di territorio, é 
dessa dovunque |’ arbitra della sua disciplina. Essa giudica della conve- 
nienza e della maggiore o minore extensione de’ suoi diritti -riguardo al 
loro esercizio, e se accomodandosi tal volta alle esigenze degli Stati modi- 
fica in parte, cid lo fa di propria autorita, non potendo a causa della sua 
indipendenza esservi costretta dal supremo potere civile. Quandié che 
se lo Stato in alcuni casi di disciplina ecclesiastica connessi con I’ interna 
sua amministrazione stimi per motivi di opportunita o di ragione politica 
necessarie alla sua quiete od alla sua properita alcune modificaztone della 
disciplina medesima, deve esse provocarle presso il potere competente, che 
é la Chiesa, deve mettersi d’ accordo con questa, e non ha diritto di farlo di 
sola propria autorita, come lo farebbe, ove si trattasse di modificare 
ed anche di abolire le prerogative e li privilegii delle civili universita e col- 
legi, che sono nello Stato e percid dipendenti de esso.’ 

15 Trid. Sess. xxv. c. xv. de Regul. et Monial. 

16 Decret. S. Congr. Episc. et Regul. March 19, 1857, for Austria; then 
the Brief of Feb. 7, 1862. 

7 Alloc. of Dec. 15, 1856 (concerning South America). 

18 Alloc. of Sept. 27, 1852, and of Jan. 22 and July 26, 1855. 

19 Brief of Pius VI. to Card. de Rochefoucault, of Mar. 10, 1791: 
‘ Regularium abolitio, a conventu nationali plaudente haereticorum com- 
mentis decreta, laedit statum publicae professionis consiliorum evangeli- 
corum, laedit vivendi rationem in Ecclesia commendatam tamquam apos- 
tolicae doctrinae consentaneam, laedit ipsos insignes fundatores, quos 
super altaribus veneramur, qui nonnisi a Deo inspirati eas instituerunt 
societates.’ With regard to Luther’s proposition, ‘ Suadendum, ut vota 
prorsus omnia tollantur aut vitentur,’ the Sorbonne declared in 1521: 
‘Haec propositio est Christi doctrinae et SS. Patrum observationi, qui 
vovere consulunt, contraria, ex errore procedens Lamperianorum, Wicle- 
fistarum et eorum, qui se jactabant de ordine Apostolorum’ (Du Plessis, 
t. i, P. ii. p. 368). 


232 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





§ 11. 

There is nothing in the Syllabus concerning Christian mar- 
riage other than the doctrine of the Church concerning the 
sacrament of marriage consistently carried out. The Pope, fol- 
lowing the Council of Trent, maintained against Nuytz that 
marriage had been raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacra- 
ment.! The same Council declared the sacrament to be inse- 
parable from the (natural) contract ;? and in consequence it fol- 
lows that the sacrament of marriage does not only consist in 
the nuptial blessing given by the priest. It has been dogma- 
tically decided that by the natural law the marriage tie is in- 
dissoluble ;* whence it follows that civil authority cannot sanc- 
tion divorce. The right of the Church to introduce impedi- 
ments that invalidate marriage has been protected by the same 
Council.® This right was derived by F. G. Vigil from the con- 
cession of civil princes, for whom also he claimed the privilege 
of abolishing the impediments introduced by the Church. Both 
these views had been already condemned by Pius VI. in his 
dogmatic Bull of 1794.6 The Church claims for herself alone 
the power of imposing impediments invalidating marriage, of 
dispensing from them, and of deciding as to the validity of mar- 
riages, but without thereby excluding the State from legislating 
on marriage in its civil character.?_ It is not in itself objection- 
able that the State should require for the civil recognition of a 
marriage something beyond what the Church asks. ‘It is the 
duty of every Catholic to obey the laws of the State. The only 
exception which can be made to this duty is when the civil 
law ordains anything that is forbidden by the divine law, or 
vice versa forbids what the latter ordains. Therefore civil di- 
rections concerning marriage must be obeyed. Consequently, 
all impediments either invalidating or impeding marriage*® which 
rest merely on the civil laws are canonically impediments 
impeding marriage.” The Religious Edict in Bavaria indeed 
declares, § 64d, ‘marriage laws, in as far as they relate to 
the civil contract and its effects,’ to be civil matters ; and the 
marriage and domestic laws of April 25, 1868, art. 33, declare 
every marriage to Le civilly invalid which had taken place with_ 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 233 





out the certificate of the non-existence of civil impediments 
given by the appointed (civil) functionary, and to continue to 
be civilly invalid until the certiticate was obtained. But it does 
not at all follow that on account of prop. 68 of the Syllabus 
the latest Bavarian marriage-laws ‘are null and void in their 
essential parts, as some think; for by the teaching of the 
Church these State demands are to be obeyed entirely ; civil 
invalidity does not encroach upon the ecclesiastical domain, 
which the Church alone defends, and the aforesaid proposition 
of the Syllabus goes no further than the Council of Trent. The 
latter moreover declares clandestine marriages to be true mar- 
riages as long as the Church has not declared them invalid ; 
likewise those marriages which have been contracted without 
the consent of the parents.!° And nevertheless several civil 
laws had declared both these classes of marriages civilly illegal, 
before as well as after the Council of Trent.1! It is the Council 
of Trent, therefore, that should be complained of rather than 
the ‘new dogmas.’ The Church has only to decide of the 
validity of the sacrament; the State, of the civil effects ; the 
Church does not deny the value of every civil impediment, 
but only of that one which would annul the sacrament and the 
bond which it creates. A dogma is here in question, and the 
assertion!? of Nuytz, reproduced from those of Launoy, Marcus 
Antonius de Dominis, and the pseudo-synod of Pistoja,!° that 
the canons of the Council of Trent must be considered either 
not dogmatic or to presuppose power conferred upon the Church 
by princes, has long been shown to be untenable.!* The Church 
is obliged by her dogmas to maintain that the form of solem- 
nising marriage prescribed by the said Council (in every place 
where this formula has been promulgated) binds, under pain 
of nullity ; that the civil law cannot appoint another form on 
which the validity of the marriage shall depend. Likewise the 
Church cannot allow that amongst Christians a merely civil 
contract constitutes an entirely valid marriage ; she maintains 
that a valid Christian marriage is also a sacrament, and without 
a sacrament has no validity.'® 

With regard to the condemned prop. 74, ‘matrimonial 


234 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





causes and betrothals belong by their nature to civil jurisdic- 
tion,’ by which it was insinuated that they had become to be- 
long to the Church merely by favour of the State, the Council of 
Trent!’ declared dogmatically that matrimonial causes, amongst 
which betrothals must be included, should be judged by eccle- 
siastics ; and seventy years before the appearance of the Sylla- 
bus the thesis of the Synod of Pistoja, that formal betrothals. 
were a purely civil act, a preparation for the contract of mar- 
riage, and subject absolutely to the regulations of the civil law, 
was condemned by Pius VI.38 in a dogmatic Bull as false, and 
as violating the right of the Church in regard to the effects re- 
sulting from the betrothals in virtue of canon law; also as de- 
rogatory to the established discipline of the Church. For an 
act preparatory to a sacrament is in this respect subject to the 
jurisdiction of the Church. 


1 ¢Tt cannot be by any means tolerated to maintain that Christ has 
raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament.’ Syll. Prop. 65, from the 
document of Aug, 22, 1851, Coll. Trid. Sess. xxiv. Can. 1, de Sacram. Matr. 

2 «The sacrament of marriage is only an adjunct of the contract and 
separable from it, and the sacrament itself only consists in the nuptial 
benediction.’ Syll. Prop. 66, from the same document, according to Trid. 
le. cap. Doctr.: ‘Gratiam vero, quae naturalem illum amorem perfi- 
ceret, &e. Cum igitur matrimonium in lege evangelica,’ &c. 

3 Bened. XIV. de Syn. Dioec. 1. viii. c. xiii. 

4 ‘By the law of nature the marriage tie is not indissoluble, and in 
many cases divorce, properly so called, may be pronounced by the civil 
authority.’ Syll. Prop. 61, from the document referred to, and the Allo- 
cution of Sept. 27, 1852, Coll. Trid. l.c. Doctr. et Can. 5, 7. 

5 «The Church has not the power of laying down what are diriment 
impediments to marriage. The civil authority does possess such a power, 
and can abolish impediments that may exist to marriage.’ Syll. Prop. 68, 
against Vigil, Coll. Trid. l.c. can. 4. ‘In the better ages, the Church, 
when she laid down certain impediments as diriment to marriage, did so 
not of her own authority, but by a right borrowed from the civil power.’ 
Prop. 69 against J. N. Nuytz. 

® Const. Auctorem fidei, Prop. 59, 60 (Denzinger, Enchirid. ed. iv. 
p. 409, n. 1422 seq.). ; 

7 Phillips, Lehrbuch, § 270, p. 944 seq. i. ed. 

8 Impediments to marriage are either impedimenta dirimentia, which 
invalidate a marriage—make it null; or impedimenta impedientia, which 
impede a marriage—make it unlawful, but do not make it null. [TR.] 

®° Schulte, Lehrbuch, § 155, p. 433. 

10 Trid. Sess. xxiv. c. viii. de Ref. Matr. 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 235 





1 Tn France, for instance, edict of Henry II. 1556, of Henry III. 1579, 
of Louis XIV. 1692 (Schulte, Eherecht, p. 496). 

12 ¢ The canons of the Council of Trent, which pronounce censure of 
anathema against those who deny the Church the right of laying down 
what are diriment impediments, either are not dogmatic, or must be 
understood as referring to such borrowed power.’ Prop. 70 of Syll. 

13 Launojus, de Reg. Potest. in Matrim. Paris, 1674 (condemned at 
Rome on Sept. 10, 1688). M.A. de Dominis, de Rep. Christ. 1. ii. ¢. xi- 
Const. Auctorem fidei, Prop. 59. 

4 Cf. Judicium Doctrinale Archiep. Mechlin. (Card. Frankenberg), of 
June 26, 1789 (Kutschker, Eherecht, i. pp. 70-74) ; Defensio Trid. Canonum 
de Eccl. Potest in dir. matr. imped. Auctore Petro Deodato, Neapoli, 1786 ; 
Nuova difesa dei canoni, 3 e 4 della Sess. xxiv. del Concilio di Trento, 
Napoli, 1788. 

15 ¢The form of solemnising marriage prescribed by the said Council, 
under penalty of nullity, does not bind in cases where the civil law has 
appointed another form, and decrees that this new form shall effectuate a 
valid marriage.’ Syll. Prop. 71. 

16 « A merely civil contract may among Christians constitute a true mar- 
riage, and it is false either that the marriage contract between Christians. 
must always be a sacrament, or that the contract is null if the sacrament * 
be excluded.’ Syll. Prop. 73. Vv Trid. Le. Can. 12. 

18 Prop. 58, Denzinger, l.c. p. 408, n. 1421. 


§ 12. 

But the real question concerns the destruction of the Chris- 
tian character of marriage and of the family, for these as well 
as the State are threatened with profanation. The following is 
one of the gravest errors that has been asserted, that the family 
derives the whole reason of its existence solely from civil law. 
Therefore the civil law has to decide all questions concerning 
marriage, the rights of parents, instruction, and education.!_ The 
foundation for this position is thoroughly false, for domestic 
society, the family, existed before civil society, the State, and 
therefore has natural right independent of the latter and given 
to it by the Creator Himself.? Maternal love is so purely natu- 
ral that it is found amongst savages and animals ; family ties 
are ties of blood, purely natural ties. The family is ordained 
by the natural law, and therefore it is impossible that ‘the whole 
reason of its existence’ can be derived from the civil law. It is. 
founded by marriage, by the inseparable life-partnership of two 
persons, undertaken with free consent from natural inclination ; 
the State no more than the Church can supply deficiency in 


2.36 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





this free consent. Modern jurisprudence has committed many 
mistakes from not rightly understanding the law of nature,’ 
and there has arisen one of the greatest errors, namely, that the 
civil power* is boundless and unrestrained by any natural law. 
This was condemned in propositions 56 and 39 of the Syllabus.* 
In truth the civil power does not really extend further than is 
required for political and civil life, for the protection of law 
and the interests of society ;> a supreme right which extends 
further than the end for which the State exists is inconceivable 
and absurd.® The State has to protect the natural rights of the 
family as well as of individuals ; no civil law can abolish them: 
as it is impossible that the State can undertake the functions of 
domestic society, its interference must only be one of comple- 
tion, and it must consider the family as a foundation of its own 
life? But the theory which makes the family of no account is 
also perverted and dangerous in its conclusions. It endangers 
individual liberty, leads to the profanation of marriage, to the 
destruction of the family spirit, this ‘second soul of mankind,’$ 
to contempt of the parental authority, parental duties, and domes- 
tic discipline, which Christianity has struggled hard to establish.9 
Parental rights are founded on duties, and are therefore unalien- 
able natural rights ; the child belongs first to the parents, then 
to the State, and with the parents rests primarily the duty of its 
education. The dreams of Rousseau and of the Socialists, with 
all their disastrous consequences, are based on a false theory 
as to the family. An enormous abuse of State power! in this 
matter, nay, a whole series of such abuses, has grown up in 
most countries. 


! Ene. of Dec. 8, 1864, § Et quoniam. 

? Aristot. Polit. 1. i. § 4, p. 482, ed. Paris, 1848. L. Taparelli, Corso 
elementare di natural Diritto, Napoli, 1853, ed. iv. 1. iii. ¢. ii. p. 134 seq. 
p. 151, n. 157. 

5 The Church has always upheld it. It was taught in Rome under 
Gregory XVI., whilst Ferdinand II. of Naples would not allow it to be 
propounded in the colleges of his kingdom. 

‘ *Moral laws do not standin need of the divine sanction, and there is 
no necessity that human laws should be conformable to the law of nature, 
and receive their sanction from God.’ Syll. Prop. 56. ‘The State is the 
origin and source of all rights, and possesses rights which are not circum- 
seribed by any limits.’ Syll. Prop. 39. 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 227 





5 Dahlmann, Politik, § 11. Bischof, Staatslehre, Giessen, 1860, 
p. 36. 
® Davies, Instit. Jurisprud. Univ. § 786. 

7 Waitz, Grundlage der Politik, p. 6. 

8 Lamartine, Voyage en Orient, i. p. 36. 

® Balmes, Katholicism und Protest. i. cap. xxiv. seq. 

10 Even Prof. Gneist has acknowledged, May 16, 1872 (Bericht der 
Reichstagverhandlungen, p. 422), as muchas this, that the pages of 
history ure full of the abuse of State power. But whilst he desires to 
have the ‘ abuse of ecclesiastical power’ corrected by the State, he does 
not inform us who is to correct the abuse of State power. 


§ 13. 


It has been concluded from the condemned prop. 57 that a 
civil law which comes into collision with any canon not for- 
mally abolished is not to be obeyed; that consequently the 
doctrines of the Church are incompatible with modern consti- 
tutions and with the oaths of allegiance towards them.! The 
proposition runs as follows: ‘Knowledge of philosophical 
things and of morals and also civil laws may and must be at 
variance with divine and ecclesiastical authority.’ This proposi- 
tion can be divided into two parts, one of which refers to philoso- 
phy and especially to ethics, the other to civil laws. It is in 
close connection with the previous one (56), and both are derived 
from the same source. In the Allocution of June 9, 1862, those 
were condemned who maintained that moral laws do not need 
divine sanction, that there is no necessity that human laws 
should conform to the law of nature or receive their force 
from God,? and that therefore there is no divine law—a doctrine 
contradicting sound philosophy, which has always demanded a 
divine sanction for laws, traced all binding force to God, and 
recognised certain first principles of reason as the foundation of 
all legislation. The Allocution has also declared itself opposed 
to the assertion that moral philosophy as well as civil legisla- 
tion may and must be at variance with (declinare) divine reve- 
lation and ecclesiastical authority. We have before seen that 
the duty of conforming to divine revelation and ecclesiastical 
authority is primarily a negative one for the civil legislation ; 
the civil power must forbid nothing that is commanded by God 


238 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





and the Church, nor command anything forbidden by God and 
the Church, whereby all liberty of conscience would be destroyed ; 
but beyond this it can leave unpunished actions that are for- 
bidden by moral law and the commands of the Church.? 
Merkle says well:* ‘ According to the principles of the Church, 
objective right is superior to every legislator, whether spiritual 
or civil. He is bound by it, and by objective duties which 
are not self-imposed. Therefore it is incumbent upon him not 
to command anything contrary to the law of God. A human 
law which is opposed to the positive divine law can by no means 
be amediate divine law, because God cannot contradict Himself. 
It can only be the expression of a creature’s will, which of it- 
self cannot bind the conscience; for all human laws derive 
their binding power from God. ... St. Jerome says, What 
the Lord God forbids no human lord can command; such a 
command would be (according to St. Augustine) a corruptio 
legis, and could (according to St. Thomas) in no right sense of 
the word be called a law. The Church maintains that no hu- 
man legislator has a right to command what is wrong; and by 
this doctrine in the interests of true liberty opposes State abso- 
lutism, the principle of tyranny. But still she is very far from 
teaching that the State is obliged to punish a// transgressions 
of moral law. Catholic theologians are unanimous in saying 
that the State can only forbid such transgressions of the moral 
law which it considers injurious to the commonweal. . . . The 
State, therefore, according to the principles of the Church, may 
not command any transgression of moral laws, but may leave 
many such transgressions unpunished. Things contrary to 
moral law are wicked; but the human law, which in good 
faith tolerates this or that transgression of the moral law, is not 
wicked.’ The question in prop. 57, according to the context, 
concerns the connection between laws and morality; there is 
no censure of the teaching of St. Thomas in this. This propo- 
sition has also two other parts; ‘they may be at variance’ is 
very different from ‘they must be at variance.’ To make it a 
duty that State legislation should be at variance with divine 
and ecclesiastical authority is an absurdity, because it implies 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 239 





an immorality, withdraws firm ground from the State, and 
abandons it entirely to human discretion. A State which con- 
sidered that to be its duty would at the same time destroy its 
own moral foundation. That ‘it must be at variance’ deserves 
to be censured as an impious and blasphemous doctrine. If ‘it 
may be at variance’ means that human laws have a right to set 
themselves in direct contradiction to divine revelation and to 
the authority of the Church, it deseryes higher censure than if 
it means that these laws may ignore revelation and the Church. 
In the latter case we must moreover consider whether the State 
be Christian or heathen. But it is a mere fu/sification instead 
of the words ‘divine revelation and the authority of the Church’ 
to substitute these : ‘any canon not formally abolished,’ which 
conld apply to any decree from Gratian’s collection, in reality 
quite open to free criticism. 

1 Schulte, i. p. 45. 

2 Recueil des Allocutions, &c. p. 457. 


3 §. Thom. Sum. 1, 2, q. 1, art. 4, in corp.; q. 96, art. 2. 
4 Merkle, Die Toleranz, p. 8. 


§ 14. 

Objections are also raised to the condemnation of prop. 62, 
‘that the principle of non-intervention ought to be proclaimed 
and adhered to.’ It is said that this condemnation rejects the 
fundamental principle of the law of nations, namely, the liberty 
and independence of every State. But it does not in fact touch 
this liberty and independence. The Pope does not dispute 
that, as a rule, one State has no right to interfere in the inter- 
nal affairs of another; and Pius IX. as well as Gregory XVI. 
had on several occasions from 1831 to 1867 to complain of the 
unauthorised interference of foreign powers in the government 
of the States of the Church. But the modern principle of non- 
intervention is widely different from this; it does not merely 
forbid an unauthorised intervention undertaken against the 
lawful wish of the rightful reigning prince in a foreign coun- 
try, under the pretext of establishing greater order, &c., but it 
also forbids any assistance to be given even against unjust ag- 
gression ; in its present form it includes an immoral principle 


240 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





which strikes at the root of international law, destroys brotherly 
love between nations, rends asunder the natural ties of hu- 
manity, exposes princes and people to every kind of violence, 
and sanctions robbery and the right of the stronger. Even set- 
ting aside positive treaties, intervention is justifiable when a 
State sees its own rights threatened or fears evil consequences 
from the proceedings of another State ; or when anarchy and 
interior demoralisation have reached such a pass that morality 
requires interference from another State to save the afflicted 
member of the commonwealth of nations ; and this may also be 
justifiable on the ground of self-preservation, to prevent or op- 
pose the injurious intervention of another power.! But since no 
exception is allowed by the principle of non-intervention, those 
rights which nature and justice require to be based on common 
support are unable to obtain it and rendered unavailing, whilst 
lawless deeds meet with impunity, as assistance is denied 
to the oppressed. Fraught with harm and danger to legiti- 
mate governments, who may well think of the maxim, ‘to- 
day to me, to-morrow to thee, this principle of non-inter- 
vention has been applied by its representatives, especially by 
Napoleon III., in a manner which plainly shows that it can 
be meted out unequally according to circumstances. France 
might intervene in the Crimea, in Syria, in Cochin China, in 
Mexico, and above all in Italy; but for the Father of Chris- 
tendom, who is no foreign power to Catholic nations, his sons 
might not intervene, unless it were advantageous to their 
government and for its private interests. By this new prin- 
ciple revolution has won an immense advantage. If it had 
been generally known and respected in 1848 and 1849, Hecker 
and his friends need have had no fear lest an army from a 
foreign State, led by a prince not yet approved by the Liberals 
of the day, should restore the grand-ducal dynasty of Baden 
and end the ‘ glorious’ revolution.2. But nowadays there are no 
principles, only the masks of principles, which can be taken on 
and off to suit the convenience of the moment. 


' Walter, Naturrecht und Politik, § 466, pp. 453, 454, with the addi- 
tion, that after the danger is passed interference must cease, and it must 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 241 





not pretend to any profit. Even Rotteck and Berner were obliged to allow 
some exceptions. 

2 Hecker was the leader of the Baden revolutionists, who were crushed 
by Prussian intervention under Prince William, now the King of Prussia. 
PoRS| 


§ 15. 


What, then, did the Pope mean in condemning prop. 62 of 
the Syllabus? The Allocution of September 28, 1860, from 
which it was taken, gives a complete explanation. It says: 
‘ We cannot help deploring amongst other things this grievous 
and pernicious principle called the principle of non-intervention, 
which has lately been proclaimed and put in practice by certain 
governments and tolerated by others, even in the case of unjust 
aggression on the part of one government against another, so 
as apparently to assure impunity and license contrary to all 
Jaws, both human and divine, for the attacks and spoliation of 
the rights, properties, and dominions of others, as we have been 
witness in these unhappy times. And indeed it is astonishing 
that the Piedmontese government alone should be permitted with 
impunity to despise and violate such a principle ; for in the face 
of all Europe we have seen it force its way with a hostile army 
into other States and expel the rigntful princes; so that the 
absurd and disastrous conclusion is to be drawn, that foreign 
intervention is only allowable when intended to provoke and 
nourish revolution.’ 

The Pope then warns princes to consider well the conse- 
quences of such a principle. ‘ Here there is in question a gi- 
gantic wrong, an act of violence accomplished in an iniquitous 
manner against the universal law of nations; if not repaired 
no right will in future be any longer secure. It is the principle 
of rebellion which is shamelessly served by the Piedmontese 
government, and from which, as is easy to perceive, a continual 
danger is menacing all governments, and ruin is threatened to 
civil society; for by this means the way is opened to Com- 
munism. It is question of the solemn treaties, according to 
which the integrity of the States of the Church as well as of 
the other European States is to be pres:rved inviolate. It is 

VOL. I. R 


242 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





question of the violent seizure of that princedom which bya special 
decree of Divine Providence has been given to the Roman Pontiff, 
in order to enable him to exercise his apostolic ministry with 
perfect freedom over the whole Church. All princes ought 
therefore to be convinced that our interest is the same as theirs, 
and that in giving us their assistance they are providing for their 
own rights as well as for ours.’ 

Wide as the poles asunder are these two things, assistance 
rendered to a weaker State with its own consent, and an unjust 
invasion of the territory of a weaker power in order to crush it. 
The censured assertion, that it is not permitted to one govern- 
ment to give assistance to another when unjustly attacked, 
would shake the security of States, and render impossible every 
offensive and defensive alliance, and even every international 
union. Carried into private life, it would altogether annul the 
command of loving our neighbour. Christian morality requires 
that every one should help his neighbour to the utmost in case 
of need: and the rule of morality for nations is the same as for 
individuals. To proclaim the universal principle of non-inter- 
vention is to extirpate the last remains of Christian international 
law, and to inflict a greater calamity on mankind than even those 
ill-advised and ill-conducted interventions between 1820 and 
1850. 

§ 16. 

It might have been expected that ruiers of modern States 
would at least have welcomed the condemnation of prop. 63, 
and have been thereby in some degree reconciled to the Syl- 
labus. This proposition declares that it is allowable to refuse 
obedience to legitimate princes, even to rebel against them. 
But instead of being welcomed, the condemnation of this pro- 
position has been held idle, on the ground that ‘whether a prince 
is legitimate or no rests, according to Boniface VIII., on the 
Pope’s decision alone ; so that if the Pope, on account of some 
violation of Church law, declares a prince to be unlawful, the 
condemnation of prop. 63 does not make it contrary to Catholic 
faith that subjects are bound to no obedience, but may rebel.”! 





The Propositions of the Syllabus. 243 
But we have seen already that the Holy See by no means attri- 
butes to itself exclusive judgment on the subject of the rigktful- 
ness of princes, but rather negotiates and treats with existing 
governments ; and also we have seen that the suppositions just 
quoted are entirely false.? Pius IX. in the Encyclical of Nov. 9, 
1846, in the Allocution of Oct. 4, 1847, and in the Briefs of 
Dec. 8, 1849, and March 26, 1860, has expressly quoted the fol- 
lowing passages of Scripture, Rom. xiii. 1 seq., 1 Peter ii. 13 seq.® 
Nevertheless the objection has been raised that the Pope has 
made an exception to these decrees, viz. in the case of anything 
being commanded contrary to the law of God and of the Church. 
But although in this case, according to Pius IX. and the whole 
teaching of the Church, subjects are released from the duty of 
obedience,* they are by no means authorised to make active re- 
sistance, and still less is rebellion either sanctioned or enforced. 
Passive resistance is sufficient. Rebellion is entirely forbidden. 
Therefore it was never a matter of faith that the Church had been 
invested with any divine authority to depose princes. This au- 
thority she only exercised at a certain period and under special 
circumstances. The real meaning of prop. 63 is more fully ex- 
emplified by the following (64): ‘ The violation of a. solemn oath, 
nay, any wicked and flagitious action repugnant to the eternal 
law, is not only not blamable, but quite lawful and worthy of 
the highest praise when done for the love of one’s country.’ This 
proposition is taken from the Allocution of April 20, 1849, given 
at Gaeta against the Italian and particularly the Roman revolu- 
tion ; it especially condemns the fact of palliating the violation 
of the sacred oath of allegiance rendered to rightful sovereigns 
under the pretext of patriotism. Why is this proposition passed 
over in complete silence ? 


' Berchtold, pp. 31, 32. 

* Supra, Essay i. pt. iii. § 3 seq. p. 59 seq. 

5 Vide Recueil des Allocutions, &c. pp. 184, 196, 250, 402. 

+ How often we are obliged to repeat the simplest truths! The civil 
power has no right to command anything contrary to the law of God 
and of religion. By doing so it would violate liberty of conscience ; reject 
Scripture (Acts iv. 19; v. 29) and universal tradition (Martyr. S. Ignatii, 
n. 1, Ep. Kecl. Smyrn. de Morte S. Polye.; Acta Mart. S. Just. n. 1; Acta 


244 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





SS. MM. Epimachil et Alex.; Acta Symphor. et Scill. Cf. Ruinart, Acta 
Martyr. sincera, pp. 14, 35, 49, 64, 69, 74 seq. Justin. Apol. i. n. 17, 68. 
Tren. v. xxiv. 2. Theophil. ad Ant. iii. 30. Athenag.Leg.n. 1. Clem. Strom. 
iv. p. 505, ed. Paris, 1641. Tertull. Apol. c. ii. 28, 30, 32 seq. Orig. c. 
Cels. VIII. 65. Minuce. Felix in Octavio, c. xxxvii. Arnob.1. ii. c. Gent. 
p. 44 seq. ed. 1651. Lactant. Inst. iv. 8, 10). With regard to faith, sacra- 
ments, worship, and religious life, the civil power has no authority, for it 
only has authority within its own sphere. 


$47. 


Revolutionary principles have been most distinctly condemned 
by Pius IX. for the good of the State. Thus, for instance, ‘ The 
will of the people’ (which, according to art. 3 of the declaration 
of the ‘ rights of man’ in 1789, is the only sovereign) ‘ constitutes 
a supreme law, independent of all divine and human right, 
whether it be acknowledged by so-called public opinion or by 
other means.”! How much have monarchies already suffered from 
this phantom of the sovereignty of the people! How greatly have 
nations been deceived byit! Does not the Pope deserve all thanks 
from governments in having decidedly opposed this error?—as, for 
example, in the censure of prop. 60: ‘ Authority is nothing but 
the result of numerical superiority and material force,’ which so 
entirely corresponds to Rousseau’s teaching, that sovereignty is 
not a power derived from God, but only arises from the sum of 
the personal rights of the separate parties to the social contract. 
The same may be said of the proposition: ‘In politics accomplished 
facts merely from being accomplished have the force of law.”* 
Such a political science is not merely irreligious but immoral ; 
it is unprincipled, and therefore senseless, totally subversive of 
the State and fatal to society when applied, as no power can at 
last prevent, to the private life of individuals. With it the follow- 
ing assertions are closely connected : ‘ Right consists in material 
fact ; all human duties are vain words, and all human acts have 
the force of right. An unjust act being successful inflicts no 
injury upon the sanctity of right.’ 

1 Encycl. Quanta cura, § Et quoniam: ‘Voluntatem populi, publica, 


quam dicunt, opinione vel alia ratione manifestatam constituere supremam 
legem ab omni divino humanoque jure solutam.’ 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 245 





2 Syll. Prop. 60. Several translations have taken ‘ numeri’ to be no- 
minative plural, whilst really it is genitive singular. For the Allocution 
of June 9, 1862, to which this belongs, has: ‘ Auctoritatem nihil aliud 
esse, nisi numeri et materialium virium summam.’ 

3 Enc. Quanta cura, l.c. 

* Syll. Prop. 59. Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862. 

5 Syll. Prop. 61. Alloc. Jamdudum, 18 Mar. 1861. 


§ 18. 

A society governed by such principles as these acknowledges 
nothing but material power, and makes the accumulation and 
increase of riches and the enjoyment of sensual pleasures the 
object of all moral teaching and excellence.1_ When all the ties 
of religion are cast off, self-seeking and the search for riches and 
pleasures become the sole aim of individuals and of the mass. The 
social condition is to mankind not an end, but a means; for other- 
wise man, ethically considered, would not be a person, but only 
a thing, existing merely for the use of others. Man has a natural 
tendency to society, because he finds init for himself and others 
protection and assistance ; it assures to him the free exercise of 
his rights and the completion of his being. But civil society 
began on the earth, and does not extend beyond it, whilst man 
himself is immortal. If society is to fulfil its whole duty towards 
man it must treat him as a being with an eternal destiny; to do 
this it needs religion, both to show him this higher destiny and 
to give him the means of attaining it. But if society does not 
treat man as an immortal being, merely looking upon him as 
bound to it and with no destiny beyond the earth, it cannot 
prevent him from pusuing temporal possessions, riches, and 
pleasures as his highest good, and from endeavouring at all costs 
to possess them. The immaterial goods of earthly nature do not 
suffice, they are not equally accessible to all, and not satisfying 
in themselves ; from this point of view virtue itself would be 
only a means of enjoyment, and would therefore only have a 
relative and not an absolute value. When earth is substituted 
for heaven the fruits and treasures of earth become the highest 
aims of life, and every means is justified which enables them 
most completely to be enjoyed ; so much attention is paid to 


246 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





the animal part of man that intellectual interests naturally 
grow weaker. Political economy stript of all morality must be 
fatal to philosophy, and an unrestrained egotism must bring 
about the war of all against all—an unfathomable abyss of 
misery and ruin. 


1 Syll. Prop. 58. Alloc. of June 9, 1862. Ene. of Aug. 10, 1863. 
2 Liberatore, l.c. c. ii. a. 6, § 2, p. 190 seq. 


§ 19. 


Proposition 80 of the Syllabus,! which has been so much 
questioned, is by no means to be understood as condemning all 
modern progress. It is true that it condemns the church-hating 
Liberalism of modern times, which was described in the Allocu- 
tion ‘Jamdudum’ of March 18, 1861, from which the proposition 
is derived, as a system specially formed to weaken and, as far as 
possible, destroy the Church of Christ. Huber pretends that in 
this Allocution the Pope entirely rejects the demand that he 
should reconcile himself to modern civilisation, because it fa- 
vours forms of worship not Catholic, opens public offices to those 
outside the Church and Catholic schools to their children. But 
it must be remembered—(1) that the Pope’s words refer to Italy, 
a Catholic country, and civilisation as there understood ; (2) that 
those were not the sole, not even the principal reasons of the 
Pope’s rejection of the demand; indeed the favour shown to 
non-Catholics was only mentioned ¢n contrast with the ill-treat- 
ment of the Catholic institutions. Pius IX. expressly condemns 
the acts of violence practised in Italy against the Church under 
the name of progress and civilisation,’ and also expressly declares 
that true civilisation has ever found a protector and guardian in 
the Holy See. He distinguishes this true civilisation from the 
system which under false names strives to extirpate the Church, 
and to which it is impossible that the Apostolic See can ever be 
reconciled ; for according to the words of the Apostle (2 Cor. vi. 
14,15), light and darkness, Christ and Belial can never agree 
together. The Sylabus has protected true Christian civilisation, 
which shrinks from seeing the Church despoiled and maltreated, 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 247 





and recoils from materialism and communism. Only prejudice 
and heretical malice can treat it as a satire on human develop- 
ment. With forms of government and modern constitutionalism 
it is as little concerned as with modern inventions, railways, tele- 
graphs, &c. As our opponents declare that the Civilta Cattolica is 
the best exponent of Papal doctrines and decisions, it may not 
be out of place to quote a passage from this journal. In speak- 
ing of prop. 80 it says :* ‘It is not to be imagined that when the 
Pope condemned Liberalism he also condemned so-called political 
liberty or the forms of free government. The Encyclical makes 
no mention of these ; nevertheless there are some who, either 
from ignorance or malice, endeavour to maintain the contrary. 
But to dissipate the delusion of the former and the deceit of the 
latter, it is only necessary to mention that the doctrine of the 
Church is unalterable. She has ever taught that every legitimate 
and just form of government is good and acceptable ; in them- 
selves forms of government are neither good nor bad; they are 
useful or dangerous according to the principles by which they 
are animated, the persons by whom they are administered, and 
the dispositions of the people to whom they apply. In the 
Middle Ages the Church was constantly struggling and ever in 
arms against imperial absolutism, and continually defending the 
liberty of Italian communities; because, while the former en- 
deavoured to appropriate foreign possessions and rose up against 
the Church, the latter were defending their own rights and were 
obedient to her. The words of Pius IX. do not refer to repre- 
sentative constitutions, but to the errors which under every form 
of government may manifest themselves, and which in our day 
have spread so terribly. His principles are precisely those which 
his predecessors have always taught; his merit is simply in 
having developed and collected these principles, and in having 
maintained them with unconquerable resolution during the 
whole of his long pontificate against his numerous and insolent 
assailants. It was impossible that Pius TX. could include civil 
and political liberty in his condemnation of Liberalism, and so 
far was it from being his intention, that at the very time of the 
publication of the Encyclical ‘Qui pluribus,” which is only further 


248 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





developed and explained by the Encyclical ‘ Quanta cura’ and 
the Syllabus, he introduced those administrative reforms® into- 
his States which have caused him to be blamed for liberal ten- 
dencies by ignorant critics.’ 


1 «The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and 
agree with, progress, Liberalism, and modern civilisation.’ Syll. Prop. 80. 

2 «Dum cuique acatholico cultui favet .... irascitur adversus religi- 
osas familias,’ &¢. 

3 Count Cavour himself acknowledged the immorality of the proceed- 
ings in New Italy when he said: ‘ Were we to act for ourselves as we act 
for Italy, we should be great fools’ (gran balossi). To which Massimo: 
d’Azeglio remarked: ‘The doctrine of a double morality, one for public, 
one for private use, is justly contested; but let that take its course’ 
(Diario Politico-Militare dell’ Ammiraglio C. Persano, Torino, 1871, 
p. 125). 

* Civilta Cattolica, ser. viii. vol. ii. quad. 504 (June 17, 1871), Pio IX. 
e la Societa Civile, pp. 692, 693. 

5 Encyclical of Noy. 9, 1846, Acta Pii IX. vol. i. Romae, 1854, pp. 
4-24), 

6 Atti del Sommo Pontefice Pio IX. parte ii. vol. i. Roma, 1857, pp. 4,. 
7 seq. 26 seq. 52, 123, 150, 191, 222. 


§ 20. 


The reply may be made that in another place! this same 
journal says, that in this same proposition Liberalism has been 
condemned absolutely and without reserve. It is perfectly cor- 
rect that under this name a system most contrary to the teaching 
of the Church has been condemned, a system which supports 
itself on material progress and modern constitutions, and en- 
deavours to imbue and leaven them with its spirit; but it is 
equally true and correct that material progress and modern 
constitutions are not in themselves identical with this system, or 
that they coincide with it. The Syllabus only refers to that 
system which violently combats the Church in every sphere, and 
endeavours at every turn to impede her salutary power; and 
this is clearly shown by the context of the Encyclical published 
at the same time. Therefore Huber’s observation, that there is 
no interpretation of the words of the decree that will allow the 
Syllabus to be compatible with the life of the State accor ding 
to modern views, is partly false and partly equivocal. Huber 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 249 





confuses the administration of the constitution by means of a 
dominant liberal party with the constitution itself. Dr. Strode 
and Dr. K.? have satisfactorily shown how very often the former 
is in contradiction with the latter. The condemnation is a 
necessary protest of the Church against that which excludes 
religion from public as well as domestic society, from schools 
and from daily life, planes the way for socialism and communism, 
undermines Christian morality, and endeavours to enthrone the 
principles of the old Jacobins and of the Paris Commune of 1871. 
The successor of St. Peter had not this or that particular country, 
this or that individual in his mind, but with one glance, with 
one act he comprehended the ruin which threatened the Church 
and humanity, and recognised it by the light of reason illumi- 
nated by revelation, and weighing well all consequences. Bold 
unbelief cries, ‘Away with Christ! we have no need of redemption; 
away with God !? we help ourselves.’ More refined unbelief says 
the same, but in a more refined manner: ‘ We allow all honour 
to be shown to God and to the Saviour, so that it is in the quiet 
of a chamber or within the walls of a church ; but in the world, 
in civil life, there we have no need of God or of Christ.* There 
we are the gods;° there our money, our science, our wills govern. 
Behold, Israel, the gods which have delivered you out of Egypt: 
modern industry, material progress, natural science, the science 
of history, a free press, and above all, that which alone 
governs all and alone can insure your happiness, the modern 
liberal State. The Church may vegetate in a hidden corner. 
The forum, the senate house, the schools, and in consequence 
the future, belong to us alone!’ 


' Reply to P. A. Cicuto, ser. viii. vol. iv. quad. 511, of Oct. 7, 1871, 
p. 74. 

2 Der Conflict Zwischen Staat und Kirche in Bayern. 

3 These words, which were let fall at a dinner of the Paris Commune, 
are very characteristic: ‘If God existed, He would have to be shot’ (All- 
gemeine Zeitung, June 8, 1871, from the Siécle). 

* In the Encyclical Quanta cura the censure of the endeavours made- 
to do away with the keeping holy of Sundays and holydays, and to limit 
works of Christian charity, was aimed at this notion. 

5 Erasmus of Rotterdam, Expl. in §. Script. p. 65: ‘Quidquid homo 
praefert Deo, id sibi facit Deum.’ 


250 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





§ 21. 

Hostile efforts to banish religion from social life, and to act 
as if there were no divine revelation, result in the withdrawal of 
the supernatural means of grace from humanity. Humanity is 
thus reduced to a state of simple nature and abandoned to itself; 
wherefore the Holy Father calls this tendency naturalism. But 
in this state we have only unredeemed humanity, tainted with 
original sin, without bit or bridle, vielding to every inclination 
and to every crime, the mind becoming dark, and the heart 
hardening, as they did in the heathen world with its false gods, 
its external cultivation, its ever-increasing moral deterioration. 
The sons of earth, lately driven out of Paradise, their reason 
darkened through want of heavenly light, perverted and dis- 
torted the simplest ideas, even the truths of nature; it is no 
marvel, therefore, that the notion of true justice and man’s true 
rights should not only have been obscured but lost, and that 
brute force should take the place of true justice and righteous 
law.! Ifthe original source of all rights is denied, every par- 
ticular right can only have a doubtful existence from one day 
to another ; the protecting dams are broken away, the floodgates 
are opened, and in pours the terrible devastating torrent of 
universal overthrow, the new deluge of literary, religious, politi- 
cal, and social revolution. An immeasurable tract is exposed to 
intellectual desolation, to horrible convulsions, to terrible bar- 
barity. And society must take all the blame, because it yielded 
in the beginning, and agreed to the premises from which these 
consequences have inexorably and inevitably ensued. It has 
itself prepared the ruin by not only enduring but fostering, cherish- 
ing, and favouring these principles.? It will not acknowledge 
the means of salvation so near athand. ‘The fundamental law 
of progress, civilisation, and liberty is the Gospel, that is, our 
Saviour Himself. He has given to the world the highest and 
purest ideal and the noblest meaning of these three things when, 
as a foundation for all His teaching, He bids us: “ Be you there- 
fore perfect, as also your Heavenly Father is perfect.”’? Those 
religious truths, ignored by the world and repeatedly proclaimed 


Lhe Propositions of the Syllabus. 251 





by Pius 1X., alone secure true progress, true civilisation, true 
liberty ; they show how Creator and creature, spirit and matter, 
reason and faith, nature and grace, the external and internal 
world, body and soul, Church and State, Christian and citizen, 
should neither be confounded, thrown together and identified, 
nor separated, absolutely divided, and placed in opposition to 
each other ; revealed truth alone shows the true harmony that 
exists in all things, and brings our intellect and life into won- 
derful unison ; moreover whenever such a harmony does not 
exist between eternal principles and deeds of momentary im- 
portance and human commands, between justice and law, these 
truths of revelation show us how to reconcile them, and prepare 
the way for further development. We learn to understand our 
own. incompleteness, shortcomings, and imperfections, and to 
console ourselves with the thought that ‘we have not here a 
lasting city, but we seek one that is to come’ (Heb. xiii. 14), 
where there will be no more weeping, pain, or death, and where 
the Lamb will be the light (Apoc. xxi. 4, 23), and with the 
thought that there must be a difference between the ideal world 
and the real world of earth. But the faithful must be on their 
guard against accepting imperfect human rules, whose authority 
is simply based on physical power, as supreme and final, to 
which everything must submit, and by which even religious 
‘truths are to be tested. That would be a return to the bar- 
barity of paganism, the deadly enemy of Christianity, eager to 
thrust the Church back into the catacombs, and to increase the 
burden of our corruption, already so heavy, and by which we 
lose so many blessings of Christianity ; for men seek to confine 
Christian influence within the walls of the churches, to sever 
it entirely from public life, and to make everything independent 
of religious principles and rules.* 

1 Pius IX. Enc. Quanta cura, § Et quoniam: ‘Ubi a civili societate 
fuit amota religio ac repudiata divinae revelationis doctrina et auctoritas, 
vel ipsa germana justitiae humanique juris notio tenebris obscuratur et 
amittitur, atque in verae justitiae legimitique juris locum materialis sub- 
stituitur vis.’ 


2 T wrote thus in 1865 (Chilianeum, vol. vi. pp. 295, 296): I can now 
repeat it even more strongly. Noe’s warning was without effect upon 


252 The Syllabus and Modern States. 





corrupted men; the words of Pius IX. have met with the same fate from 
most of his contemporaries, who hurry blindfold to the abyss they will 
not see. 

3 Dupanloup, Die Convention v. 15 Sept. und die Encyclica v. 8 Dec. 
1861, ii. Th. § 5. 

* ¢ As if,’ says Tosi (Vorles. iiber den Syllabus Errorum, p. 4), ‘man- 
kind had to strive after two totally distinct aims; as if our supernatural 
destiny did not include and transform the natural elements of our deve- 
lopment; and as if every form of life, whether of individuals or of the 
mass, ought not to be pervaded and purified by the spirit of Chris- 
tianity.’ 

§ 22. 

The following is an example of the false suppositions under 
which this discussion is carried on: Berchtold says: ‘ We are 
certainly completely justified in basing our argument concerning 
the irreconcilable contradiction between the new Papal dogmas 
and the Bavarian State laws on the supposition that the Bulls 
‘ Unam sanctam,’ ‘Cum ex Apostolatus,’ &c., and in particular the 
propositions of the Syllabus are matters of faith in the new 
Catholic Church.? But the Bull ‘Cum ex Apostolatus,’ as well 
as many others, contains no matter of faith. The Bull ‘Unam 
sanctam’ has only defined one proposition to be an article of faith. 
The Syllabus is only & dogmatic judgment in a wide sense ; more- 
over most of its propositions are misinterpreted, distorted, and 
never understood in their proper connection. Hence further 
arguments based on this supposition rest on a false foundation ; 
they do not rise above the level of empty declamation, which 
repeats and repeats, but never proves. ‘The Syllabus rightly 
understood is only a serious warning against the advancing decay 
and ruin of religious life and thought ;? also against the utter 
misconception of the object, signification, and nature of the 
Catholic Church, regarded nowadays as the ignorant regard 
without comprehending her old cathedrals and painted windows: 


‘ Peep into the church from the market outside, 
And is anything else but gloom there—say ? 
Our friend the Philistine peeps this way, 
And rightly enough he sniffs with pride, 
And sneers at the church till his dying day, 
But, ah—let him venture but once inside !’*—Goethe. 


The Propositions of the Syllabus. 253 





1 Berchtold, p. 15. Cf. p. 24 seq. 

2 Tosi, l.c.: ‘ Error is very liable to produce a spiritual miasma, a poi- 
soned atmosphere, in which even the most healthy sicken, and the doctors 
themselves are at last attacked by the evil. Thus has the process of secu- 
larisation spread itself abroad; and some persons who, in consequence of 
their talents or position, have been chosen to represent the intelligence of 
the Church, have not been able entirely to divest themselves of this fatal 
influence. To prevent us all from falling victims to this contagion, the 
venerable old man who at the present time is governing the Christian 
community is obliged to raise his voice, in order, by the lightning of 
God’s Word, to dispel the deceitful twilight of modern ideas. Praise and 
thanks be to the successor of the Apostle- princes ; he has spoken the 
oe and put an end to the fluctuations of opinion.’ 

‘ Sieht man vom Markt in die Kirche herein, 
Da ist Alles dunkel und duster ; 
Und so sieht’s auch der Herr Philister. 
Der mag denn wohl verdriesslich sein 
Und lebenslang verdriesslich bleiben 
Kommt aber nur einmal herein !’ 


ESSAY VI. 
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 


Tue attacks of the enemies of the Church at the present 
day have mostly reference to her conduct in the Middle Ages, 
and in order thoroughly to reply to them we must closely ex- 
amine the principles of those times, which differ fundamentally 
from the principles prevailing at the present day. How hard it 
is to many of our contemporaries to place themselves in the 
position to form a judgment on the relations of Church and 
State in the Middle Ages has been fully recognised and ex- 
pressed by the clear-sighted John Frederick Bohmer,! and it is 
also shown bya glance at the opinions on the subject prevailing 
amongst us. ‘It is almost incredible,’ writes Karl von Thaler 
with great truth, ‘ how few educated men know more of history 
than is taught in school-books.’? Only a thorough knowledge of 
the state of society in that day, of the principles of law and 
justice, and of the manner, condition, and wants of the people, 
taken in connection with their ever-advancing development,— 
this knowledge alone can give us a right understanding of the 
immense influence gained and maintained through many hun- 
dred years by the Popes (and by Councils as well)? over sove- 
reigns and States, an influence which we at the present day 
find it hard to understand. I will endeavour to portray the 
leading features—(1) of the influence of the Church on social and 
political life ; (2) of the power of the Papacy ; and (3) of excom- 
munication and its consequences in the Middle Ages. 


' J. Fred. Bohmer’s Leben, Briefe und Kleinere Schriften, von J. 
Janssen, vol. i. p. 247 seq. Boéhmer’s Leben und Anshauungen, Freib. 
1869, p. 278. 

* Allgemeine Zeitung, Feb. 2, 1871. 

* Vide infra, esp. part iii. § 14 seq. 


Influence of the Church. Ea 





Part [. INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH ON SociAL AND 
Pouiticau Lire. 

§ 1. The Church in the Germanic kingdoms. § 2. Elective and hereditary 
monarchies. § 3. Restriction of the royal power. § 4. The first duties 
of a king, those towards God. §5. The oath of kings. § 6. Their 
coronation and anointing. § 7. Kinghood andknighthood. § 8. Power 
of the clergy, especially the bishops. § 9. State of society in that day. 
§ 10. Close union between Church and State. § 11. Natural, divine, 
and positive law. § 12. Religion and freedom. 


§ 1. 


With the entrance of Christianity into the world began the 
action of a new force, which necessarily and rightly led to new 
relations of national life.' The kingdom of heaven thrown open 
by the Redeemer of the world was a grain of mustard-seed, 
which was to become a lofty tree; a handful of leaven which 
was to leaven all things (St. Matt. xiii. 31, 33; St. Luke xiii. 
19, 21).2. No one can deny that Christianity made a change 
for the better in the civil, political, and social life of the Roman 
Empire.* Its influence was, however, far greater with the 
German races, where there was no existing heathen civilisation 
to be purified, but where its work was to implant civilisation 
for the first time amongst a barbarous and savage people. The 
Church was the mediator and peacemaker between the con- 
quered Romans and the victorious Germans ; she protected the 
one and educated and moulded the other.® She was the one 
source of culture, the one counterpoise to brute force, the one 
cultivated body throughout the whole human society.® 


' Harless, Staat und Kirche, p. 2. 

? Chrys. Hom. 46 al. 47, in Matth. n. 2. Migne, lviii. p. 178 seq. 

3 Bianchi, t. iii. c. iii. § 19, pp. 353-356. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, iii. 
§ 118, p. 13 seq. 

* Neander, Kirchengeschichte, ii. p. 49, iii. ed. 

5 Dollinger, Lehrbuch d. Kirchengeschichte, i. § 44, p. 217. 

6 Neander, l.c. 

§ 2. 


In most of the kingdoms raised upon the ruins of the 
Roman Empire in the West there was a combination of elective 


256 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





and hereditary monarchy, so that while the king had to be 
chosen from among the members of the reigning family, the 
choice of the nation might fall on any of the princes of the 
blood royal; no individual prince had by birth full and indis- 
putable right to the throne ; the right was only conferred upon 
him by the assembly of the nation, and especially by the chief 
men among them. All the sons of the late king had an equal 
right of succession ; and either, with the consent of the na- 
tion, a division of the kingdom was made, or the assembly of 
those privileged to vote made choice of some member of the 
reigning family to be head of the State.!| This was the case espe- 
cially in England,? with the Visigoths in Spain,? and with the 
Franks. Pipin made the Franks swear to him that they would 
never choose a king of any other blood, in order to give a great 
security to his dynasty. In the deeds of division of Dieden- 
hofen (Feb. 8, 806), by which Charlemagne divided his king- 
dom between his three sons, it was stipulated that in case one 
of them should die leaving a son, and this son were chosen by 
the people as successor to his father, his uncles should acknow- 
ledge him as such.® 

1 Guizot, Essais sur l’Histoire de France, essai iv. c. iii. pp. 219-223. 
Giesebrecht, Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserheit, iii. dupl. i. p. 90. 

? Hallam, Europe in the Middle Ages. Lingard, History of England. 
Ranke, Englische Geschichte, i. pp. 14, 30 seq. 34 seq. See especially 
Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol. i. ¢. iii. 

3’ Hallam. Ferreras, Hist. d’Espagne, t. ii. p. 419. Perez Valiente, 
Apparat. Jur. Publ. Hispan. Matriti, 1751, t. ii. c. vi. vii. 21. 

4 Vertot, Dissert. sur la Succession 4 la Couronne de France (Mé- 
moires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, 4, t. v.). Guizot, lc. p. 218. Cf, 
Greg. Turon. 1. ii. c. xii. Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 5, p. ii. c. ult. a. 4, 


n. 5; saec. 7, c. vi. a. 4, n. 2; saec. 9, et 10, Pp. i. cap. vii. a. 4, 9. 
5 Pertz, Leg. t.i. p. 140. 


§ 3. 

In the Germanic kingdoms great regard was felt for the free- 
dom and privileges of the individual,! while the authority of the 
sovereign was limited by the general assembly of the nation. 
It was commonly the case that the nation in choosing a prince 
laid on him certain conditions, and could hold him answerable 
for his conduct.2 It was an understood condition that the king 


Influence of the Church. 257 





must deal uprightly, govern well and justly, maintain peace and 
concord, and not misuse his power by oppression. The kingly 
power was never looked upon as absolute and unlimited ; the 
rights of the people were quite as important as those of the 
prince, and he was put in mind of his duties, as they of theirs? 
The people were not to exist for the benetit of the prince; and 
his power was to be employed, not for his own ends, but for the 
welfare of the nation. 

In the appendix to the Capitularies,® following the words of 
the Councils held in Paris(829) and at Aix (836),° it is said: ‘Rex 
(king) is derived from recte agendo (dealing justly) ; he may 
truly be called king who acts piously, uprightly, and mercifully ; 
the ruler who acts otherwise is a tyrant. The duty of a king is 
to rule his people with righteousness and justice, and to main- 
tain peace and harmony.’ The same was said by Pope Nicholas I., 
by Hincmar of Rheims, and by the Council of Mainz (888).7 The 
following words were written by a French duchess to Count 
Theobald : ‘The sovereign who declines from the path of just 
judgment deserves to lose his title, especially as God has ap- 
pointed princes on earth, that after a just trial they may decide 
and pass judgment.’ Thus there was, if not an explicit, at 
least an implied, covenant between prince and people, such as 
is mentioned in Holy Scripture between David and the peo- 
ple of Israel (2 Kings v.3). In a conference held November 7, 
1405, Gerson opposed the error of those who maintained that a 
ruler has no obligations towards his subjects, and he even 
declared that these obligations once violated, he was no longer 
to be considered as ruler.? The conditions upon which a king 
was to be acknowledged were laid down beforehand, and when 
these were disregarded, his reign itself was to come to an end. 
Transactions often took place respecting the accession of this or 
that prince to the throne much resembling the ‘ capitulations,’ 
that is, the conditions to which the German emperors even in 
later times had to swear, before being elected. 


1 Of. Phillips, l.c. § 120, p. 66. 

2 Guizot, l.c. pp. 223-226. Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Méthode pour étudier 
lHistoire, P. iv. c. v. a. 1, t. iv. p. 333. 

VOL, I. 5 


258 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





3 Walter, Kirchenrecht, book viii. § 343, p. 608, 11th ed. 

4 Vide Seneca, i. de Clem. c. xix.: ‘Rempublicam non esse principis, 
sed principem reipublicae.’ Aug. de Civ. Dei, 1. v. c. xii.: ‘ Rex dicitur 
a regendo et consulendo, non a regnando atque imperando.’ 

5 Capitul. Addit. t. i. p. 1146, ed. Baluz; Add. ii. n. 24, 25. 

6 Conc. Paris. vi. 1. ii. c. i. Asquisgr. ii, Hefele, Conc. iv. 61 
seq. 87. 

7 Nicol. I. Ep. 4, ad Advent. Meteus.: ‘ Videte, utrum reges isti et 
principes, quibus vos subjectos esse dicitis, veraciter reges et principes 
sint. Videte si primum bene se regunt, deinde subditum populum... 
Videte si jure principantur; alioquin potius tyranni credendi sint, quam 
reges habendi,’ &c. Hincemar, Opusc. de Divortio Lotharii (Opp. i. 693). 
Conc. Mogunt, 888, c. 2 (Hefele, iv. p. 527). 

8 Petr. Bles. Ep. 184, p. 476. 

® Cf. Schwab Gerson, pp. 240 seq. 428. 


g 4. 


In the medieval States, as in those of antiquity,! religion 
was the foundation and mainstay of society, and the first and 
most important duty of princes was its care and defence. A 
ruler was to be, above all, the servant of God, the defender of 
the Church, of the weak, and of the needy.? In the words of 
Scripture he was the representative and servant of God for the 
people of God (1 Chron. xxviii. 5, xxix. 11, 23; Eccles. xvii. 
14, 15; Rom. xiii. 4); bound to render strict account? (Wisd. 
vi. 2-11; Ezech. xxxiv. 10,11); by justice alone could his 
throne be firmly established (Prov. xvi. 12; Ps. Ixxi. 2 seq.). 
He who has not a truly religious mind, said Gerson (Jan. 6, 
1391), cannot in truth be called a king ; firm trust in God is 
the highest praise bestowed in Scripture upon a prince. The 
words of Leo the Great, ‘to reign is to serve God,’ were in 
use throughout the Middle Ages ;5 likewise those of St. Augus- 
tine, ‘The wicked man is a slave, even though he be a ruler; 
and this not to asingle individual, but to as many masters as he 
has vices." The first and most important duties of princes 
were those due to God and the Church, and in discharging 
them they were to set an example to all their subjects.” 

1 Aristot. Polit. vii. 8: prov 4 wep) ray Oclwy emipédrcia. Plato, de 
Leg. 1. x . Xenophon, Memor. Socr. i. Cicero, de Leg. ii. 6, 7, de Natura 


Deor. 1. i.; de Finibus,l.ivy. Plutarch, who calls religion cuverrixdy réons 
kowwrlas kal vouobecias epecua. Valerius Maximus, 1. i. c.i. de Rel., who 


Influence of the Church. 259 





says: ‘Omnia namque post religionem ponenda semper nostra civitas 
duxit etiamin quibus summae majestatis conspici decus voluit.’ Cf. Hugo 
Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis, ii. 20, § 44, n. 3 seq.; Montesquieu, Esprit 
des Lois, iii. 9. ; 

2 Hieron. in Jerem. c. xxii. (Gratian, c. 23, c. xxiii.q. 5). Leg. Visi- 
goth. 1. xii. tit. 2, n.2. Leg. Angl. (Canciani, Barbarorum Leges, t. iv. 
pp. 185, 311, 337), Jur. Alaman. s. Suevici Specimen. n.24 seq. Senken- 
burg, Corp. Jur. Germ. t. ii. p. 6 seq. 

3 Cone. Paris. vi. 1. ii. c. ii.: ‘Scire etiam debet (rex), quod causa, 
quam juxta ministerium sibi commissum administrat, non hominum, sed 
Dei causa existit, cui pro ministerio, quod suscepit, in examinis tremendi 
die rationem redditurus est;’ c. v.: ‘Nemo regum a progenitoribus reg- 
num sibi administrari sed a Deo veraciter atque humiliter credere debet 
dari.’ 

4 Schwab Gerson, p. 411 seq. Cf. p. 456 seq. 

5 Deo servire regnare est. Leo M. Petrus Bles. Ep. 20, p. 74, ed. 
Migne; Ep. 139, p. 413. 

6 Aug. de Civit. Dei, 1. iv. c. iii. _ 

7 Anselm. Cantuar. 1. iii. Ep. 132, ad Regem Scotiae; 1.i. Ep. 142, ad 
Reg. Hibern. Petrus Bles. Ep. 67, p. 211: ‘Rex cui omne judicium in 
populo datum est, quomodo judicabit populum suum in lege domini, si 
legem domini non cognoyvit?? In the Tract. quales sunt, P. iv. c. xii. 
p. 1048, he calls Christ, regum omnium potentissimus, qui vices et jura 
sua regibus suis exsequenda commisit. Petrus Vener. 1. ii. Ep. 7, p. 197, 
ad Regem Norvegiae; Ep. 46, p. 269, ad Reg. Hieros. ; 1. iii. Ep. 3; 1. iv. 37, 
pp. 180, 369, ad Roger. Reg. Sicil.; Ep. 36, p. 366, ad Reg. France. 


§ 5. 

In many States the monarch was elected only on the express 
condition of professing the Catholic faith, defending it with all 
his might against attack, and thus best insuring the peace and 
welfare of his land. 

In Spain, from the seventh to the fourteenth century, the 
king had to take such an oath ; when it was no longer formally 
taken, a Spanish king was still understood to be ever bound by 
this obligation; the title ‘ Catholic king’ was a title of honour 
and of responsibility! In the laws of Edward the Confessor, 
published by William the Conqueror and his successors, it was 
expressly said, that a king who did not fulfil his duties towards 
the Church was to forfeit his title of king; and that he was to 
be bound by oath to this before his coronation.2 Even sup- 
posing these laws do not come down from Edward, still there can 
be no doubt that they put before us the views and principles of 


260 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





justice which prevailed under the early Norman kings.? Ac- 
cording to the purport of the words, a prince who was faithless 
in his religious duties not only deserved to forfeit his kingly 
title, but was in fact to forfeit it.4 


1 Perez Valiente, l.c. t. xi. c. vii. n. 18. 

2 Leges Edwardi Regis, art. 17, al. 15 (Wilkins, Leg. Anglo-Saxon. 
Lond. 1721): ‘ Rex autem, qui vicarius summi regis est, ad hoc est con- 
stitutus, ut regnum terrenum et populum Domini, et super omnia sanctam 
veneretur Ecclesiam ejus, et regat et ab injuriosis defendat et maleficos ab 
ea evellat et destruat, et penitus disperdat. Quod niswfecerit, nec nomen 
regis in eo constabit, verum testante Papa Joanne nomen regis perdit.’ 
Vide Cancian. l.c. p. 337. Howard (Traité sur les Coutumes Anglo-Nor- 
mandes, Paris, 1776, t.i. p. 167) omits the last words, contrary to all former 
editions (Spelman, Concilia, Decreta, Leges, Const. Orbis Britan. Lond. 
1639 seq. p. 622; Wilkins, Conc. Brit. Lond. 1737, i. 312 ; Hard. Cone. vi. 
988), and gives no reason for the omission. Vide Gosselin, ii. p. 303, n. 1. 
It is not certain whether Pope John has been confounded with Pope Zach- 
arias, or whether the passage refers to John VIII. in c. xxvi. Adminis- 
tratores, c. xxiii. q. 5—in which, however, the words are not so strong— 
or to a lost writing by a Pope of this name. 

3 Wilkins, Conc. M. Brit. i. 310. Canciani, l.c. p. 224. 

* Cf. Receveur, Hist. de l’Eglise, t. v. p. 127. 


§ 6. 


The coronation of kings, which was in early times likened 
to the consecration of bishops,! brought home to the people the 
loftiness of the royal dignity, and to the king the weight of 
his responsibilities? In the West, as in the East, where from 
the fifth century the emperor had been crowned by the Patriarch,* 
the profession of faith, and the oath taken by the king, that he 
would rule with justice, defend the Church, &c., formed a part 
of the coronation. In the Arles Pontificale, a rite of anointing 
is given, in which the prince to be anointed is presented to the 
metropolitan by two eminent bishops with a petition that he 
may be raised to the kingly dignity ;* upon which the metro- 
politan, precisely as at a consecration, inquires into his worth 
and fitness, and having received a satisfactory answer, replies 
‘Deo gratias.’ Before the anointing came the taking of the 
oath. Most significant are the accompanying prayers and words.® 
Many were of opinion that kings received full power only at 


Influence of the Church. 201 





their coronation and anointing by the Church. The language 
of documents is in keeping with this view; the twelfth Council 
of Toledo (681) says, from the deeds laid before it, it is clear 
that Prince Erwig had attained the dignity of king and re- 
ceived the royal power through the sacred anointing.? Charles 
the Bold, in his complaint against Archbishop Wenilo of Sens 
(859), laid stress on the fact that the archbishop had consecrated 
him and raised him to the throne.§ 

Although the king, either by election or by birth, might 
have a right to reign (jus ad rem), still, according to universal 
belief, his reign began (jus in re) through the anointing and 
blessing of the Church, or at the very least his power then 
received its solemn sanction.9 


' Petrus Damiani, sermo 69, in Dedicatione Ecclesiae, t. ii. p. 374. 
Petrus Bles. Ep.10, ad G. Capell. In the East, the Patriarch Polyeuktus, 
in a synodal decree of 969 (Bever. Pand. can.i. p. 385; Balsam. in c. xii. 
Ancyr.), even compares this anointing in its effects to baptism. 

2 Phillips, Kirchenrecht, iii. § 120, pp. 67, 68. 

3 Theod. lect. ii. 65. Theophan. p.170, ed. Bonn. Le Quien, Or. Christ. 
i. 133, § 22. 

4 Pontificale M. 8. Eccl. Arelat. ap. Martene, de Antiquis Eccl. Riti- 
-bus, t. iii. 1. ii. c. x. p. 222: ‘Reverende pater, postulat mater Ecclesia, 
ut praesentem militem ad dignitatem regalem sublevetis.’ 

5 Martene, l.c. pp. 192-199. Cf. formula in Phillips, l.c. p. 72 seq., 
and that used at the coronation of Edward II. of England, Feb. 24, 1308, 
Rymer, iii. 63; also Lingard. 

6 Martene, l.c. pp. 203, 205, 214. Phillips, pp. 74-79. Walter, lc. 
p. 608, n. 2. 

7 Aguirre, Conc. Hisp. ii. 683, c. i.: ‘Regnandique per sacrosanctam 
unctionem susceperit potestatem.’ 

8 Libell. Proclam. Hard. v. 488. 

® Bianchi, t. ii. 1. v. § 12, n. 8, p. 381 seq. against the Defensio 
Declarat. Cleri. Gall. P. i. 1. ii. c. xliv. p. 269 seq. ed. Mogunt, 1788. 


§ 7. 

At the coronation ofa king, the principle was expressly laid 
down that the temporal sword was to be borne for the honour 
of God. This applied more strictly indeed to kings, but also 
to the entire Germanic knighthood. As of old, in heathen times, 
weapons were laid on the altars of the gods and consecrated 
to sacred conflicts, in like manner the sword was delivered 


262 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





to the Christian warrior by the hands of the Church, or at 
least with religious solemnity. In the case of warlike nations, 
the blessing of the sword by the Church was a means of draw- 
ing their whole lives within the domain of Christianity.! It 
was universally held that knighthood bound a man, above all, 
to the defence of the Church, the weak, and the needy. The 
truer knights are towards their sovereign, says John of Salis- 
bury, so much the more zealously will they keep faith with 
God.? Faith must be kept first with God, then with princes 
and people; the higher ever comes before the lower; the 
commands of princes cannot be obeyed when contrary to the 
commands of God; and this the oath itself says? All, with- 
out exception, belong to the Church, whether hound by an 
oath expressed in words, or by one taken in silence; a deed 
weighs as much as aword; if the future knight bring his sword 
solemnly to the altar, and there make an offering of it to God, 
he has done as much as abbots and bishops when they make 
their profession in writing before God. Much is granted them 
for the service of the Church, but nothing is granted to be used 
against her. The chief duty of Christian knighthood was to 
do battle for the Church, and even when princes received the 
knightly stroke this duty was ever put before them; as was 
done in the case of William of Holland, who, after the speech of 
the Papal legate and the taking of the oath, was dubbed knight 
by the King of Bohemia with earnest words of admonition.® 
Often were kings reminded that the sword had been given to 
them for the defence of the Church,® and that they should imi- 
tate King David in their submission to God.7 


1 Phillips, § 121, p. 8l seq. Cf. Walter, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, 
p. i. § 219. 

? Joh. Saresbur. Polycrat. 1. vi. c. viii.: ‘Sed ipsius juramenti (mili- 
taris) verba revolve, et invenies, armatam militiam non minus quam spi- 
ritualem ex necessitate officiit ad religionem et Dei cultum arctari, cum 
Jideliter et secundum Deum principi debeatur obsequium et reipublicae 
pervigil famulatus. Illi ergo quid habent militis, qui vocati ex sacramento 
non obtemperant legi, sed in eo militiae suae gloriam constare credunt, si 
contemptibile sit sacerdotium, si Ecclesiae vilescat auctoritas, si ita dila- 
taverint regnum hominis, ut Christi imperium contrahatur, si laudes suas 
praedicent et se falsis ipsos praeconiis mulceant et extollant, cum irrisione 


Ln fluence of the Church. 263 





audientium imitantes ‘‘ militem gloriosum’”’? .... Sed quid est usus mili- 
tiae ordinatae? Tueri Ecclesiam, perfidiam impugnare, sacerdotium 
venerari, pauperum propulsare injurias, pacare provinciam, pro fratribus, 
ut sacramenti docet conceptio, fundere sanguinem et si opus est, animam 
ponere.... Haec agentes milites sancti sunt et in eo fideliores principi 
quo servant studiosius fidem Dei, et virtutis suae utilius gloriam promo- 
vent, quo fidelius Dei sui in omnibus gloriam quaerunt.’ Cf. Anselm’s 
words, in Mohler’s Anselm of Canterbury (Gesammte Schriften, i. p. 99), 
and Alanus ab Insulis de Arte Praedicat. c. xl. (Migne, ccx. p. 786). 

3 Ib. c. ix. p. 601: ‘ Haec autem omni militiae formula praescribenda 
est et implenda, ut Deo primum fides debita deinde principibus et retpub- 
licae servetur incolumis et semper majora praejudicabunt minoribus, quia 
nec reipublicae nec fides principi servanda est contra Deum, sicut habet 
ipsa conceptio militaris sacramenti.’ Sosays St. Augustine in Psalm cxxiv. 
of the Christian soldiers under Julian: ‘ Milites Christiani servierunt im- 
peratori infideli; ubi veniebatur ad causam Christi, non agnoscebant nisi 
eum, qui in coelo erat.’ 

4 Ib.c. x. pp. 601, 602: ‘ Licet autem sint, quisibi non teneri videntur 
Ecclesiae ex sacramento solemni, quia jam ex consuetudine plerumque non 
praestatur, nullus tamen est, quisacramento tacito vel expresso Ecclesiae 
non teneatur obnoxius. Et forte ideo cessat solemnitas juramenti, quia 
ad hoc omnis invitat et coarctat necessitas officii et sinceritas fidei. Unde 
jam inolevit consuwetudo solemnis ut ea ipsa die, qua quisque militari cin- 
gulo decoratur, ecclesiam solemniter adeat gladioque super altare posito et 
oblato, quasi celebri professione facta, se ipsum obsequio altaris devoveat 
et gladit, t.e. officit sui, jugem Deo spondeat famulatum. Neque necesse 
- est, ut hoc profiteatur verbo, cum legitima professio militiae facto ejus 
videatur inserta. Quis enim in homine illiterato et qui magis arma debeat 
nosse quam literas, professionem exigat literarum? Nam episcopi et 
abbates professione scripta vel dicta ad fidem et obedientiam videntur 
arctari. Et revera arctantur, quia Deo mentiri non licet. Sane aut plus 
est aut non minus, quod milites faciunt, qui non schedulam, sed gladium 
offerunt et quasi primitias officit redimunt ab altari, unde Ecclesiae in 
perpetuum famulentur. Nam sicut eis pro Ecclesia plurimum, ita contra 
Ecclesiam licet nihil.’ Cf. Petr. Bles. Ep. 94, p. 294. 

5 Magn. Chron. Belgic. ap. Pistor. Scr. Rer. Germ. iii. 266. Pertz, 
iv. 363. Phillips, l.c. p. 82 seq. d 

6 Petrus Bles. Ep. 112, pp. 338, 339: ‘ Recolat .... rex, se non ad op- 
pressionem pauperum, sed ad tuitionem Ecclesia potestatem gladii ac- 
cepisse.’ 

7 Petr. Bles. Tractatus quales sunt, P. iii. c. xix. p. 1036: ‘Regem 
(imitentur) reges, ut quanto latiora sibi regna subduntur quanto de die in 
diem amplificantur, quanto plus eis honoris impenditur, humiliores effici- 
antur et gratias agant datori. Datori dico non dictori; datori, qui dedit, 
ut inde plus (se) humilient, non dictori, qui dicit, ut inde plus jactitent.... 
Qui facit, unde reges gaudeant, facit, unde reges contremiscant. Ipse 
namque est per quem reges regnant (Prov. viii. 15) ; ipse qui dat salutem 
regibus (Ps. cxliii. 10); ipse qui subdidit eis populos, est idem ipse, qui 
aufert spiritum principum, terribilis apud omnes reges terrae (Ps. Ixy. 


264 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





13); ipse est qui facit ut potentes potentur tormentis patiantur (Sap. vi. 
7)... . se ipsos sentiant esse homines, qui ab hominibus sentiuntur 
reges.’ 

§ 8. 

This being the state of the case, the clergy naturally took 
an active part in all the weighty affairs of their country, and 
exercised a powerful influence,! to which their learning and in- 
telligence, their wide possessions in land and their firmness of 
character greatly contributed. Bishops and, later, many abbots 
also obtained privileges of independence in the German em- 
pire. Kings often sought and obtained from them support 
against their turbulent nobles ; mixed parliaments were formed 
(concilia mixta), synods and parliaments in one, composed of 
the lords spiritual and temporal.2. In Spain the bishops, to- 
gether with the chiefs of the nation, chose the king, who had, 
before ascending the throne, to promise by oath to fulfil all 
his obligations.? So also, according to the English Council of 
Calcut (787), kings were to be lawfully chosen by the bishops 
and chief men of the nation.# At Aix (842) the bishops re- 
quired from the brothers of Lothair I. a vow that they would 
govern in a manner well-pleasing to God.® In the year 879, 
Count Bosco was chosen and crowned king by the lords spiri- 
tual and temporal of Provence ;° and the same was done in 
other lands.7 Bishops, being vassals holding directly from the 
king, had a share, if not always a personal share, in all his 
privileges and duties ;3 their moral weight and their material 
possessions secured to them a most prominent position. They 
filled the posts of chancellor and ambassador at the various 
courts, they were the most valued councillors of the sovereign, 
and above all they were the leaders of opinion in the assembly 
of the nation. They exercised a certain control over temporal 
justice, their legal orders took precedence of those of earls,}° 
and the State officials had moreover to support the bishops with 
the temporal arm.!! The joint inspection of the public prisons 
was also given to the bishops,}2 who often set prisoners free on 
the feasts of the Church,!° and through their right of giving 
sanctuary were a safeguard against private vengeance and the 


Influence of the Church. 265 





rude administration of justice in those days.!* They were treated 
with the greatest honour by the king,}5 and were often in his 
absence left as administrators of the realm, as, for example, 
Archbishop Lanfranc in England.16 


1 Bossuet, Defensio Decl. Cleri. Gall. P. i. 1. ii. c. xxxvi. p. 254: ‘Cum 
(episcopi) commissos greges paterna charitate etiam in negotiis saeculari- 
bus adjuvarent ipsique reipublicae non tantum ornamento, verum etiam 
tutelae ac firmamento essent, eos tanta regum ac civium charitas et re- 
verentia prosecuta est, ut jam reipublicae pars maxima interque optimates 
primi haberentur, multi etiam lapsu temporis suarum urbium principatum 
ditionemque obtinerent, quae sacro conjuncta ordini et ejus dignitate tan- 
quam fundamento nixa longe tamen absunt ab iis, quae primae institu- 
tionis esse constat.’? On the political authority of the bishops from the 
fourth century, vide Thomassin, P. iii. 1. i. c. xxvi. seq. xxxi. 

2 Dillinger, Lehrbuch, ii. p. 11. Neander, Kirchengeschichte, ii. 
p. 52. Giesebrecht, l.c. i. pp. 76, 331, p. 8. Phillips, l.c. p. 64 seq. Cf. 
Willelm. Malmesb. de Gest. Angl. 1. v.; Thomassin, l.c. c. xxviii. seq. 

3 Conc: Tolet. iv. 633, can. 75; vi. 638, c. 3; ix. 655, c. 10. Hefele, 
Cone. iii. p. 80 seq. 83, 92. Cf. Fleury, t. viii. 1. xxxvii. n. 50. 

4 Can. 12. Mansi, xii. 937. Hefele, l.c. p. 597. 

5 Nithard. ap. Pertz, Mon. ii. 668. Hefele, iv. p. 521. 

6 Pertz, 1. 512; iii. 547. Hefele, iv. p. 521. 

7 Cf. the Council of Pavia, 889 or 890. Hefele, iv. p. 98 seq. 

8 Phillips, Deutsche Geschichte, i. p. 469 seq. ; ii. p. 314 seq. 407 seq. 

® Cf. Thomassin, l.c. et seq. P. iii. 1. il. ¢. xxv. n. 6 seq.; c. xxiv. 
=n, seq. 

10 Cone. Tribur. 895, can. 9. Hefele, iv. p. 533. Thomassin, P. ii. 
Tai. e xxxixs di AVsego 3c. XCval- Me pls7Os 

1 Conc. Paris. 846, c. 71. Mogunt, 847, c. 7; 851, ¢.2. Tribur. 895, 
c. 3. Hefele, iv. 112, 120, 171, 532. 

12 Conc. Aurel. v. 549, c. 20. 

18 Bened. Levita. Capit. 1. ii. c. 107. 

14 Walter, Kirchenrecht, § 345, p. 611, note 7. 

15 For examples, vide Thomassin, P. ii. 1. iii. c. Ix. n. 6-11; ¢. xii. n. 3 
seq.; ¢c. lxiv. 

16 Thomassin, P. iii. 1. iii, c. xxiv. n. 4.° 


§ 9. 

The state of society was moreover such that the aid of the 
Church could not be dispensed with, and could be replaced by 
no other.! Outside the Church violence and barbarity, sword 
and conquest, the untamed powers of nature, reigned unchecked, 
both before the time of Pipin and Charlemagne, and after them 
under their more feeble successors, and indeed long after the 


266 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





complete extinction of their race. In spite of the contempt for 
learning and culture, there existed still a deep reverence for 
religion and for its ministers ; in spite of all passions, faith was 
still living. Monasteries were held in high honour as abodes 
of purer life, and persons high in rank took pleasure in visiting 
them, and frequently chose them as places of retreat for the 
remainder of their lives.* Discipline and sound principles could 
come from the Church alone; enlightened legislation could be 
her work alone; and under her influence alone could the con- 
dition of society be improved. To her was due the mitigation 
and repression of slavery,‘ the first organised care of the poor,? 
the institution of the Truce of God,§ the establishment of places 
of education,’ and every true form of progress. Princes and 
people were eager to confide their weightiest interests to the 
clergy, and to increase their external means of power and in- 
fluence ;§ for by their learning and virtue they merited trust, 
and by their character and authority they were the most sure 
support of public order. The Church, on her side, did her 
utmost to obtain safeguards against the many attacks and acts 
of aggression of princes and nobles, who sometimes, from desire 
of vengeance, oftener from mere covetousness, imprisoned bishops 
and priests, robbed them, misused them, and thrust others into 
their places.® . 

1 Fleury, Hist. Ecclés, t. xiii. discours 3, Mceurs des Chrétiens, n. 
57-61. 

2 Voltaire, Essai sur les Mceurs et Esprit des Nations, c. exxxix. 
(Giuvres, xviii. pp. 235-8). Hofler, Deutsche Papste, i. pp. 22 seq. 199 seq. ; 
li. p. 75 seq. 

3 Guizot, Hist. Générale de la Civilisation en Europe, lecon iii. v. vi. 
pp. 86 seq. 182 seq. 172 seq. 

4 Balmes, Protest. und Katholicismus, c. xiv.-xix. pp. 199 seq. Ratis- 
bon, ed. 1844. Mohler, Gesammte Schriften, ii. p. 54 seq. 

5 Ratzinger, Geschichte der kirchlichen Armenpfiege, Freiburg, 1868, 
p. 141 seq. 

6 Phillips, Kirchenrecht, iii. § 121, pp. 84-89. 

7 Walter, Kirchenrecht, § 337, p. 600 seq. Daniel, Classische Studien. 
Trans. by Gaisser, Freib. 1855, p. 57 seq. 

8 Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, 1. xxxi. c. xix. 

® This is proved by the decrees of many Councils: e.g. Troyes, 878 ; 
Tribur, 895, c. 7; Troslei, 909; Hohenaltheim, 916 (Hefele, iv. pp. 513, 
533, 548, 557); and others besides. 


Influence of the Church. 267 





§ 10. 


In all medieval States it was considered essential to the 
general welfare of society that Church and State should be 
closely united. Their working well together had been looked 
upon in Christendom from the earliest times as a pledge of hap- 
piness and prosperity, and their separation as the foundation 
and beginning of untold evils.1_ Therefore, just as submission 
to temporal powers was enjoined by the Church,? submission 
to the Church was on their side impressed by kings upon all 
their subjects.? From this close union between the two powers 
and from the prominent position of the clergy it followed neces- 
sarily that the laws of the Church were confirmed by the autho- 
rity of the sovereign of the land and by the infliction of 
external punishments. In the East the emperors regularly 
confirmed the decrees of General Councils and gave them the 
authority of laws of the empire, and hence they had to be ob- 
served under pain of temporal punishments.+* 

In the Germanic kingdoms the union between Church and 
State was far closer, and the uncivilised state of the nations in- 
~ ereased the necessity for external penalties. The Carolingian 
legislation adheres closely to the canon law of the Church ;> in 
Spain Councils confirmed or modified the edicts of the king ;° in 
England also the same harmony existed ; the decrees of a Coun- 
cil in 691 or 692 were transcribed into the code of laws of King 
Ina.’ The Emperor Henry II. confirmed, as laws of the empire, 
the decrees of the Council held at Pavia by Benedict VIII. (1018) 
to secure their being put in force by the civil power.8 Peter 
Damiani desired that bishops should proceed against misdoers 
according to civil law; and that the king, with the advice of 
the bishops and guided by canon law, should pass decrees touch- 
ing on religious matters.® Thus had Charles the Great acted in 
‘virtue of his friendly relations with the Church ; but at the same 
time he was careful to avoid any collision with existing ecclesi- 
astical rules, and revoked any decrees which were contrary to the 
regulations already laid down by the Church.!? She rightfully 
and necessarily demanded that nothing contrary to divine or 


268 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





ecclesiastical precepts or to the freedom and honour of the 
house of God should be introduced: by civil law or by custom 
into the life of Christian nations.!! The sentence pronounced 
at Chalcedon still held good, that all imperial laws which were 
contradictory to canon law should be null and void ;!? but while 
this principle was unquestioned in the West, the bishops of the 
East seldom succeeded in dissuading their emperor from passing 
laws against the Church. According to the words of Holy 
Scripture (St. Luke x. 16; St. Matt. x. 40; St. John xiii. 20) 
and of the Fathers, as also according to the dogma of the rela- 
tion of the Church to Christ, every offence and insult offered to 
her was an offence and insult offered to God Himself.!¢ The 
Council of Fimes, under the presidentship of Hincmar (881), 
declared the dignity of bishop higher than that of king, since 
bishops consecrate kings, and are bound to render account of 
them to God.!® 


1 Ivo Carno. Ep. 238: ‘ Cum regnum et sacerdotium inter se conveni- 
unt bene regitur mundus.’ Ep. ad Hag. Lugdun. (Floss, Die Papstwahl 
unter den Ottonen, p. 172): ‘ Regnum divisum et sacerdotium, sine quorum 
concordia res humanae nec incolumes esse possunt nec tutae.’ 

2 Romans xili..1seq:; 1 Pet. 11.19: -Aug. ¢. 24, c. xxiii. q. 5; .c..98; 
ec. xi.q.3. Tert. Apol. c. 30, de Idol. c. 15. Hier. in Tit.c.3. Ovig. c. Cels. 
v.37. Nicol. Myst. Ep.1, ad Amiram Cret. (Mai Spicil. Rom. x. ii. p. 61). 

3 Capitul. Franc. t. i. p. 437. 

4 Justinian, Nov. 131, c. i. Cod. i. 1, 47, 48. 

5 Analyse des Capitulaires, in Ceillier, Hist. des Auteurs, t. xviii. 
p. 380. 

® Conc. Tolet. viii. 653, c. 13; xii. 681, c. 9; xiii. 683, c. 1-4. Hefele, 
iii. pp. 92, 289, 291. 

7 Mansi, xii. 56 seq. Hefele, iii. 318 seq. 

8 Mansi, xix. 343 seq. Fleury, t. xii. 1. lviii. n. 47. Hefele, iv. p. 
638 seq. 

® Petrus Dam. t. iii. Opuse. 4, p. 30: ‘ Ceterum (pontifex) deliquentes, 
cum causa dictaverit, forensi lege coerceat, et ipse rex cum suis epis- 
copis, super animarum statu prolata SS. Canonum auctoritate decernat.’ 

10 Dollinger, Lehrb. ii. § 74, pp. 11, 12. 

1 Joh. Saresb. Ep. 184, ad Barthol. Ep. Exon. p. 188: ‘ Illis (consue- 
tudinibus rex) profecto debuerat esse contentus, quae non sunt divinis 
legibus inimicae, quae bonis moribus non adversantur, quae sacerdotium 
non dehonestant, quae periculum non ingerunt animarum, quae matris 
Ecclesiae, de cujus manu suscepit gladium ad ipsam tuendam et injurias 
propulsandas, non subruunt libertatem.’ 

12 Mansi, vii. 98. The Emperor Marcian expressly recognised this 


Influence of the Church. 269 





pp. 262, 265, ed. Migne, t. ii.), and was highly praised for it by Facundus 
of Hermiane. Defens. Trium. capit. xii. 3 (Galland. xii. 801). 

1s They succeeded sometimes. Thus in the tenth century Nikephorus 
Phokas wished soldiers fallen in war to be honoured as martyrs, but the 
bishops held fast to a canon of Basil. Theod. Balsam. in Basil. can. 13. 
Bever. ii. p. 70. Cedren. Chron. ii. p. 369. 

14 Bernard. Ep. 45, ad Ludov. Reg. Franc. (Migne, elxxxii. p. 150) : 
‘Non utique episcopo Parisiensi (infensum vos redditis) sed Domino para- 
disi, et quidem terribili et ei qui aufert spiritum principum (Ps. Ixxyv. 12, 13). 
Ipse quippe est, qui ad episcopos dicit: qui vos spernit, &c. (S. Lue. x.).” 
Petr. Bles. Ep. 153, p. 447: ‘Sponsa enim Christi (Ecclesia) est et in- 
jurias sponsae Christus reputat suas.’ Joh. Saresb. Ep. cit. p. 189= 
‘Sponsum exhonorat Christum, quicunque inhonorat ecclesiam sponsam 
ejus. Sunt enim corpus unum, imo et spiritus unus, et quod amplius est, , 
collatione gratiae quodam modo sunt Deus unus, dum admiribili commercio 
illa, quae carnis sunt, ex natura primitiva Domino impertit, ut ab eo ple- 
nitudinem divinae naturae recipiat et oleo exultationis quadam ratione 
consortii abundet ab illo et effluat tota.’ 

15 Mansi, xvii. 537, c.i. Hefele, iv. p. 522. 


ae 


All jurisprudence of former days distinguishes between natu- 
ral and positive law. The first rests upon the principles im- 
planted by the Creator in human nature, has its foundation on 
its own intrinsic necessity, is unchangeable, eternal, and every- 
where the same.! The second is founded on the free will of 
the lawgiver, and is liable to change, because it is called for by 
no intrinsic necessity.2_ The natural law was called the eternal 
law, when considered as God’s will determining the order and 
government of the world; and was called the natural law when 
manifested in the heart and consciousness of mankind.? As 
originating in God the law of nature is also called divine law.* 
Positive law is divided into divine law (the old and new cove- 
nant)° and human law, which again is subdivided into spiritual 
and temporal (or civil) law, upon which rests the law of na- 
tions. Public law rules all that concerns the general ordering 
of the State or of the Church; private law, all that has to do 
with the mutual relations and duties of individuals. These two: 
laws rest partly upon natural, partly upon positive human law, 
knowledge of which is to be gained not from written codes only, 


270 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





but from customs rendered sacred by long usage.” It was an 
accepted rule that the civil law might never be prejudicial to 
the natural law ; no civil, law, no custom could prevail over it ;8 
and more than this, any temporal law which was contrary to the 
natural or to the positive divine law was null and void, and was 
no law at all.® Thus a distinction was ever made between those 
commands which are binding at all times and in all places and 
those which have not this character.1° The task which tem- 
poral legislation had before it was, first, to adhere to the natural 
and divine law;! and to do this it needed the guidance of the 
Church, who in the widest and in the strictest sense is guardian 
of the deposit of the divine law;!? secondly, to place upon 
human freedom no restraint which was not demanded by the 
well-being of society ;!% and here again the council of the 
Church was of the highest value. In support of this was 
quoted Malach. ii. 7, Ag. ii. 12, according to which the priests 
of God are the guardians of the law, and are to be consulted 
concerning it.!* Legislation was to be in conformity with the 
decrees of the Church. 


1 Arist. Eth. v. 7. Cic. de Leg. ii. 4, 5; de Republ. iii. 22 (et pass.); 
de Invent. ii. 22, 53. Or. pro Milone. Seneca, Ep. 65, ad Lucil.; Rom. 
ii. 14, 15, and on it the Fathers: Aug. Conf. vi. 4; Instit. Jur. Civ. i. 2, 
Ulp. f.1, §3; Dig. de Just. et Jure, i.1. Gratian,c.i.7,d.1. S. Thom. 
in 1. iv. sent. d. 33, a. 1; Sum. i. 2,q.94, a. 6. Suarez, de Leg. i. 1 seq. 
Domat, Droit Public. Préface, pp. 15, 16. Zallinger, Instit. Jur. Nat. 
Prine. Bouix, Tract. de Princ. Jur. Can. P. i. sect. 1, c. iii. p. 16 seq. 
Leibnitz, Observ. de Prine. Jur. § 2 (Opp. iv. iii. p. 270): ‘Jus naturale 
est, quod ex sola ratione naturali sciri potest sine revelatione.’ Cf. Hem- 
ming, de Lege Naturae Apodict. Methodus, Wittenb. 1577; Hugo Grot. de 
Jure Belli et Pacis, Paris, 1625, 1. i.e. i. § 10, 12. 

2 §. Thom. Sum. i. 2, q. 91, a. 3; q. 95, a. 2. Lactant. Div. Inst. vi. 
8. St. Bernard. de Praecepto et Dispens. ¢. iii, p. 864 seq. 

3-8. Thom. Ee: q.93)a. dissq. 91, a:12, 33; 9..45).q:)95; 8. 2. ‘Soto, de 
Just et Jure, libri vii. Salam. 1556. Other authors apud Walter, Natur- 
recht, § 528, 529, p. 540 seq. Cf. § 61, p. 69. 

4 Isidor. Orig. v. 2 (c. ii. d. 1). 

5 Thomas. Instit. Jurisprud. Div. i. ii. § 4,117. Bouisx, l.c. c. iv. 

6 Bouix, l.c. c. v. 

7 Domat, Lois Civiles, livre prélim. tit. 1, sect. 1, n.2 seq. Bouix, 
c. Vi. 

5 Petrus Bles. Ep. 70, p. 218: ‘ Jus civile naturale corrumpere non po- 
test, cum jus civile a naturali quodammodo tollatur.’ Ep. 82, p. 254: 


Influence of the Church. 271 





‘Ubi divina et humana jussio sibi invicem contradicunt, obediendum est 
Deo magis quam hominibus. Cumque sint duae leges, exterior et in- 
terior, interior semper praejudicat, quodque puritas conscientiae dictat 
mihi, exteriori praecepto fortius est et omnem indulgentiam alienae dis- 
pensationis evacuat.’ 

.° §. Thom. i. 2, q. 95, a. 2: ‘Si lex humanitus posita in aliquo a lege 
naturali discordet, jam non erit lex, sed legis corruptio.’ 

10 Joh. Saresb. Polyer. iv. vii. p. 527: ‘Sunt etenim praecepta quae- 
dam perpetuam habentia necessitatem, apud omnes gentes legitima et 
quae omnino impune solvinon possunt. Ante legem, sub lege, sub gratia, 
omnes lex una contringit: Quod tibi non vis fieri, alii ne feceris (Tob. iv.). 
In his dumtaxat, quae mobilia sunt, dispensatio verborum admittitur, ita 
tamen, ut compensatione honestatis aut utilitatis mens legis integra con- 
servetur.’ Cf.1. vii. 17. Bernard. de Consid. 1. iii. c. iv. n. 18, Petrus 
Vener. 1. i. Ep. 23, p. 148. 

1 *Conditor legum temporalium, si vir bonus est et sapiens, legem ae- 
ternam consulit, ut secundum ejus immortales regulas, quid sit pro tem- 
pore jubendum vitandumque, decernat.’ Aug. de Vera Relig. c. xxxi. Cf. 
Thom. i. 2, q. 95, a. 2. 

12 In the strict sense, divine law comprises only the natural law and 
the positive law of direct revelation ; in the wider sense, ecclesiastical law 
also. Cf. Andries, Doctrina Salmeronis, p. 20. 

3 Auct. (not St. Thomas) de Reg. Prine. iii. c. xi.: ‘Ad hoc Deus pro- 
vidit de eis (regibus), ut regnum regant et gubernent et unumquemque in 
suo jure conservent.’ 

1 This was done by the bishops of the kingdom of Charles the Bold, 
writing to Lewis the German. Baron. a. 858. 

18 In respect to this, St. Bernard. de Consid. 1. iv. c. vii. n. 23, calls 
the Pope, regum patrem, legum moderatorem, canonum dispensatorem, sal 
terrae, orbis lumen. Many laws, especially in cases of marriage, were 
issued at the request of Popes and bishops ; e.g. even by King Luitprand 
(712-744) : Leg. Longob. Luitpr. v. 4. 


§ 12. 

The two ideas especially realised in the Middle Ages were 
freedom and religion.1 They were not in opposition, but mu- 
tually supported one another; the Church, in which religion 
was incorporated, was at the same time the guardian of free- 
dom. ‘In the Middle Ages self-government, which was pre- 
served by the formation of corporations, was a means of satis- 
fying the Teutonic spirit of freedom, and associations with their 
abundant resources elevated the interests of life and strength- 
ened its energies. Thence came that wonderful wealth of cre- 
ative power which was seen to spring forth in that remarkable 


272 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





time, almost without help from the State, in every department 
of human existence, in science, art, political life, industry, com- 
merce, and in devotion to the higher aims of life.’"? These mul- 
tifarious societies had all more or less of a religious stamp; they 
had their patron saints and their festivals, and were brought-in 
continual contact with the Church.3 Civil and political free- 
dom was based on the recognition of the rights due to each 
class, and this recognition found its main support in the Church; 
true freedom was realised and secured in Christendom alone.* 
True national freedom does not consist in outward show, but is 
founded upon an inward organisation ;> the Middle Ages were, 
moreover, rich in provincial, municipal, and corporative liber- 
ties, and strove hard to protect them all. But high though 
freedom stood, Religion stood still higher ;6 she taught the true 
use of earthly freedom, and was herself the highest good, to be 
worked and striven for above all else. The pastors of the 
Church were bound by the law of God, which forbids all in- 
iquity, to punish every disobedient subject (2 Cor. x. 6), and 
to oppose the mighty of the earth if they transgressed a single: 
article of this law.7 In such cases the pastors of the flock were 
by no means to keep silence, but to fulfil their charge with 
courage ; bishops who were merely hangers-on of princes, and 
proved themselves cowards in their dealings with the great of 
this world, were not thought worthy of the name of bishop.® 
Of old those prelates won the highest renown who defended 
the freedom of the Church,9 such as St. Thomas a Becket.?° 

1 Joh. Saresb. Ep. 193, ad Ep. Exon. p. 207: ‘Duae causae sunt, quas 
homines affectuosissime tuentur et quas praeponunt animabus suis: al- 
tera libertatis, altera fidei et religionis.’ Also Petrus Bles. tr. de Instit. 
Ep. p. 1111: ‘Duo sunt, justitia et libertas, pro quibus quisque fidelis us- 
que ad sanguinem stare debet.’ 

2? Walter, Naturrecht und Politik, § 330, p. 300. 

3 On the Confratriae under Hincmar in the ninth century, vide Tho- 
massin, P. i. 1. ii. c. xxv. n. 5; on the Workmen’s Associations in Spain, 
vide Capmany’s Memoirs of Barcelona (1779), of which an extract is given 
in Balmes’ Protestantism and Catholicity, Eng. Trans. note 35. 

* Petrus Bles. Ep. 121, p. 355: ‘Ecclesia quidem a diebus antiquis 
libera est, et filii ejus, qua libertate Christus nos liberavit dicens in Kvan- 


gelio, quia filii liberi sunt (St. Matt. xvii. 25).’ Cf. Aug. de Civ. Dei, 
1S 4 Gao k 


The Power of the Papacy. 273 





5 Cf. Balmes, Lc. vol. iii. c. xlviii. p. 2, German edit. 

® Joh. Saresb. l.c.: ‘Illa tamen (causa) quae fidei est, creditur esse 
praestantior et procul dubio justior est, adeo quidem ut et profanae religio- 
nis homines hoc constantissimum habeant.’ 

7 Joh. Saresb. l.c.: ‘ Haec (lex Dei) iniquitatem prohibet et pastoribus 
Ecclesiae praescribit, ut omnem ulciscantur in obedientiam.’ p. 208. ‘In 
omni ergo divinae legis articulo contendendum est, et potestatibus as- 
cendendum ex adverso, et quidquid charitatem impugnat, quae legis est 
plenitudo, totis viribus subvertendum.’ 

8 Id. Ep. 201, ad Albert. Card. p. 223: ‘Si pastorale officium nonnisi 
ad nutum principis liceat exercere, procul dubio nec crimina punientur nec 
tyrannorum arguetur immanitas nec reipsa diu stabit Ecclesia. Ergo quis- 
quis ille sit, qui in tantarum pravitatum usurpatione silere et dissimulare 
consulit sacerdotes, haereticum esse non dubito et praeambulum Anti- 
christi, si ipse non sit personaliter Antichristus.’ Polyer. 1. viii. c. xxiii. 
p. 809: ‘ Ait Cyprianus: Episcopus si timet, actum est de eo.’ Petr. Bles. 
Ep. 100, p. 310: ‘ Verumtamen remissio, quae os praelati obstruit, quae 
adulatorem et venditorem olei facit, dum sibi quietem et honorificentiam 
venatur in favore principum, haec miseros praecipitat in foveam scanda- 
lorum.’ 

° Petr. Bles. Ep. 20, p. 71: ‘Non enim potest esse praeclarior famae 
titulus in praelato, quam si viriliter tueatur statum ecclesiasticae li- 
bertatis.’ 

10 Petr. Bles. Ep. 22, pp. 77-82; Ep. 27, p. 92 seq. (in which St. Tho- 
mas is called, religiosorum gloria, deliciae plebis, timor principium, Deus 
Pharaonis). Vide many examples in Thomassin, P. ii. 1. iii. c. lxiii. The 
_ example of the ancient prophets is put before bishops by Petr. Bles. Tract. 
de Instit. Episc. p. 1112. 


Part II. Toe Power or THE Papacy. 


§ 1. Exalted position of the Pope. § 2. The Pope the father of the one 
family of Christian nations. § 3. Disputes settled by him. § 4. Public 
affairs conducted by him. § 5. The Pope the refuge of all. § 6. Le- 
gislation of the Popes. Laws upon usury. § 7. The Popes active in 
the interests of princes. § 8. Their government. §9. Their temporal 
power not inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel. § 10. Their power 
developed naturally. 


G4. 

The political influence of the clergy, and in particular of the 
bishops, being so great, that of the Pope must have been yet 
greater, for as Head of the Church universal he was held in 
the highest veneration, and from the latter half of the eighth 
century he had been a sovereign in Italy. He was the one 

VOL. I. fu 


gi) Principles of the Middle Ages. 





centre of all Christendom ; he was repeatedly called upon by 
princes and people, and, as time went on, he could not withhold 
from intervention in the disputes of individual nations. 

Gregory II. specified it as the office of the Pope to make 
and maintain peace on all sides.1 Gregory IV. felt obliged (in 
833) to make an attempt (which was fruitless) to mediate 
between Lewis the Pious and his sons; and Abbot Wala of 
Corvey proved from ecclesiastical authorities that in so doing 
he was fulfilling his office.2 Nicholas I. (865) designates Rome 
as a central city, in which thousands seek a refuge and the 
protection of St. Peter.? The chair of Peter, besides the splen- 
dour which belonged to it as such, shone with the added 
splendour gained for it by the energy, justice, and wisdom of 
its occupants; the Papacy, besides its supreme and inborn 
rights, had others, which were secondary and additional. But 
the deep foundation of them all lay ever in the religious 
character of the Primacy,> which had the power of adapting 
itself to every new situation, and by its very nature was bound 
so to adapt itself. 


1 Gregor. II. Ep. 2, ad Leon. Isaur.: ‘Scire autem debes ac pro certo 
habere Pontifiees, qui pro tempore Romae exstiterint, conciliandae pacis 
causa sedere tamquam parietem integerrimum septumque medianum ori- 
entis atque occidentis, ac pacis arbitros, ac moderatores esse, quique ante 
te fuerunt‘imperatores in hoc componendae pacis certamine desuda- 
runt.’ 

2 Paschas. Radbert. in Vita Walae Abbat. ap. Mabillon, Acta SS. 0.S.B. 
saec. 4, P. ii. J. it. 

3 Nicol. I. Ep. 8. Mansi, xv. 207. 

4 Bossuet, l.c. pp. 254, 255: ‘Distinguamus.... quae institutionis 
sint, quae sint accessionis, quae primaria, quae secundaria, quae innata, 
quae annexa sint. Pontifices Romani, quo altiore loco erant, Petri nomine 
ac majestate primum, quae post Christum erat maxima, tum dominae 
urbis splendore commendati, haec annexa et secundaria longe eminentius 
(quam reliqui episcopi) obtinebant. Coepit ergo Romana Sedes non modo 
in ecclesiasticis, quod et ipsi innatum, sed etiam in civilibus majestatem 
habere negotiis, eo maxime tempore, soluta in occidente imperii vi, Ro- 
manorum Pontificum fide atque observantia singulari suam dignitatem in 
his partibus sustentabant.? He then quotes Gregory II. l.c. and the 
letters of Gregory I., of which mention will be made in Essay xiii. 

5 This is alsoshown by the titles given to the Pope by St. Bernard. de 
Consid. 1. ii. c. viii. n. 15: ‘In princeps episcoporum, tu haeres apostolo- 


The Power of the Papacy. — 275 





rum, tu primatu Abel, gubernatu Noe, patriarchatu Abraham, ordine Mel- 
chisedech, dignitate Aaron, auctoritate Moyses, Judicatu Samuel, potestate 
Petrus, unctione Christus.’ 


§ 2. 

To nations still outside the pale of Christianity, peace and 
order were all but unknown, and this was the case even long 
after their conversion; the Church could endeavour to secure 
these blessings for them, and it was her duty to do so. ‘It 
follows necessarily on the perfect development of Christianity, 
that all Christian nations, although in all else they retain their 
national independence, look upon themselves as brethren, and 
therefore upon all violence and hostility towards one another 
as forbidden.’! The Church doctrine of the common origin of 
all men, their common hereditary guilt, and their one Redeemer, . 
led to the perception of the physical and spiritual unity of 
mankind ; and in the Church was created an organisation by 
which this unity could be realised and made known? This 
unity found expression in the language of the Church (Latin), 
which was likewise the language of diplomacy, in the strivings 
after knowledge and art, and also in the principles of faith, of 
morality, and of society. All Christian nations formed one 
family? — Christendom united in one faith.* This family 
had need of a head, of a father, and this head it possessed 
in the person of him who was honoured by all as their com- 
mon father,® the Vicar of God,® the successor of St. Peter,’ to 
whom Christ had delivered His sheep and His lambs to be 
fed. Emperors and kings addressed him as father, and were in 
turn called by him sons.8 He was to the whole of Christendom 
the vicar of the Heavenly King, Jesus Christ, the interpreter of 
the divine law, the chief pastor of souls, their councillor and 
leader, the prince of peace ; the inexorable avenger of evil and 
injustice,® the ‘hammer’ of the guilty, the consoler of the inno- 
cent,!° the universal physician.!!_ He was the faithful and wise 
servant, whom the Lord had set over His family (St. Matt. | 
xxiv. 25).12 The Apostolic See of Rome necessarily became the 
centre of the national life of Europe, even before the establish- 


276 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





ment of the Western Empire ; and still more was this the case 
when that empire became unable to maintain its high position, 
and the people were in need of some bond of union.!? 


1 Walter, Kirchenrecht, book viii. § 342, p. 606, 11th ed. 

2 Walter, Naturrecht und Politik, § 38, pp. 46, 47. 

3 Guizot, l’Eglise et la Société Chrét. c. xiv.: ‘En méme temps que 
son origine est divine, l’idée fondamentale du Christianisme est essentiel- 
lement et par excellence humaine. Sous l’empire de cette idée le Chris- 
tianisme a considéré tous les hommes, tous les peuples comme liés entre 
eux par d’autres liens que la force, par des liens indépendants de la diver- 
sité des territoires et des gouvernements. Tous les hommes, tous les 
peuples étaient compris dans sa mission: Allez et instruisez toutes les na- 
tions. En travaillant a convertir toutes les nations, le Christianisme a 
entendu aussi les unir, et faire pénétrer dans leurs rapports des principes 
de justice et de la paix, de droit et de devoir mutuels. C’est au nom de 
la foi, et de la loi Chrétienne, qu’est né dans la Chrétienté le droit des 
gens.’ 

4 Cf. Déllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, p. 3. 

5 Theodore the Studite styles Pope Leo III. xopupaidtaros mathp mat éowy, 
1. i. Ep. 33, p.1017,ed. Migne. The Pope is usually called Pater Patrum 
even by bishops. Andreas, Praevalit, Ep. ap. Baron. a. 519, p. 35. 

6 The Pope is styled Vicarius Christi as early as the fifth and sixth cen- 
turies ; in the ninth the title is more frequent. Anti-Janus, p. 67, n. 19. 
St. Bernard, who even sometimes calls bishops vicarii Christi (Tract. de 
Morib. et Off. Ep. n. 36, p. 832, Ep. 183), and also speaks of the Pope as 
the Vicar of Peter (Ep. 183, 243, 346), calls St. Peter (de Cons. ii, 8, n. 16) 
Unicus Christi Vicarius. Cf. 1. iv. c. vii. n. 23. 

7 Vicarius stands for the Greek tomornpnrfs, locum tenens (locum Petri 
tenens the Pope is called even by St. Cyprian, Ep. 52; regens locum Petri 
by Innoc. I., &c.), and vicarius is in general qui vices gerit alterius. 
Thus it is synonymous with successor. St. Cyprian, Ep. 68, unites the 
two expressions (A.-J. p. 67, n. 15). Schulte, iii. p. 135, considers it sig- 
nificant that in old times the expressions vicarius and successor Petri 
are seldom used. But of what account is this, when so many equivalent 
expressions are used, such as haeres Petri (Leo M. serm. 3, c. iv. and 
elsewhere often), haeres sedis, or administrationis Petri, and numberless 
paraphrases? But it is not true that these expressions are rare. Vide 
Letters of St. Boniface (e.g. Ep. 48, ad Cuthbert, Baron. a. 740, vicarius 
Petri). A distinction between vicarius and successor has only been strictly 
made since the twelfth century. Thus John of Salisbury, Ep. 198, ad 
Alex. III. (Migne, cxcix. p. 217) calls the Pope successor Petri, vicarius 
Crucifixi. Innocent III. 1. ii. Ep. 211, Alex. Imp. (Migne, ccxiv. p. 769), 
says: ‘ Vicarios Christi et principis Apostolorum successores.’ Petrus 
Vener. 1. i. Ep. 11, says: ‘ Vicarius Dei.’ 

8 The Emperor Marcian, at the close of the letter to Pope Leo, Dec. 18, 
451 (Leo, Ep. 100, p. 1114), calls the Pope ‘ Father ;’ Constantine Pogo- 
natus calls him ‘ your paternal Holiness’ (Baron. a. 678, n. 4); Justinian, 


The Power of the Papacy. 277 





in his letters to Hormisdas, styles his uncle, Justin. I., as filius vester 
(Baron. a. 520, n. 35; a. 521, n. 2, 3); paternitas vestra, write the Western 
princes, ¢.g. Lothair II. (Baron. a. 866, n. 37-42). Pope John II. calls 
Justinian his son (Baron. a. 534, p. 198, 1. viii. Cod. i. 1, de 8. Trin.). 
Likewise Vigilius, 545 (Mansi, ix. 41, J. n. 593, p. 78); Agatho also calls 
Constantine Pogonatus (Baron. a. 680; Mansi, xi. p. 234) son, and Nicho- 
las I. calls Michael} III. son (Mansi, xv. 234; Jaffé, n. 2124, p. 249), &. 
Cf. Thomassin, P. ii. 1. iii. c. Ix. n. 4. 

® Joh. Saresb. Polyer. 1. viii. ¢. xxiii. p. 813: ‘Qui omnium coercere 
debet excessus.’ Innoc. III. 1. xv. Ep. 189 (Migne, cexvi. p. 711). 

10 Nocentium malleus, et innocentium consolator. Petrus Bles. ad In- 
noc. III. Ep. 151 (Migne, cevii. p. 443). 

1 Jonat. Cpl. Patr. ad Nicol. I. Baron. a. 867, n. 108. Mansi, xvi. 
AT, 325. 

12 §t. Bernard. de Consid. 1. iii. c. i. n. 2. 

13 Walter, Kirchenrecht, p. 606. 


§ 3. 

To the head of the family falls the duty of deciding who 
shall be adopted into its circle ; and in the same way application 
was made to the Pope respecting adoption into the union of 
Christian nations, and new kingdoms received recognition from 
him, as in the present day from treaties and congresses. It is 
_ the right and the duty of the head of the family to ward off 
and to pacify strife among its members ; and in the same way, 
when disputes threatened, the chief pastors of the Church 
intervened as mediators, or were called in as arbitrators by the 
disputants themselves.!_ The Church sought to put an end to 
war, with its horrors and crimes, or failing this, to limit and 
lessen its sufferings as much as possible, especially by forbidding 
weapons of too murderous a kind.?- The Church authorities 
were to decide upon the justice of a war, and many held that 
without this war was never to be made.? Many wars were, in 
fact, hindered by the Papal authority, or at least brought to a 
speedy close. Was that a calamity? Can that be made a 
cause of complaint, even in the nineteenth century? Can a 
jurist so distinguished as Walter be accused of falsehood, when 
he says +—‘ Even if a perpetual tribunal cannot be established 
over States, submission to an umpire chosen by either party at 
least is possible. As civilisation advances, the reason of all 
mankind will infallibly labour unceasingly to promote this end, 


208 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





and strive to make it a necessity of international law. War is 
justifiable only when States have, as a last rescrt, no other 
means of enforcing their just claims against one another.° The 
organisation of mankind will never be complete without an 
international tribunal, provided with powers of coercion.’ 
Truly an age which is content with an artificial balance of 
power in politics,?7 while the most solemn treaties are despised 
and violated ;§ which is forced to endure either a state of war, 
or a state of armed peace, consuming the marrow of nations;° 
which, even amid the mightiest social tempests, persists in 
holding politics aloof from religion and morality, and is ever 
hastening on towards terrible catastrophes,—such an age has, 
indeed, no right to look down with insolence upon the princi- 
ples and the practices of the Middle Ages. 


1 Walter, Kirchenrecht, p. 607. 

2 Walter, ibid. specially notes 5, 6. 

3 Gerhoch, de corrupto Eccl. statu (Baluz. Miscell. v. p. 117): ‘ Deni- 
que in omni militum vel civium guerra et discordia vel pars altera justa et 
altera injusta, vel utraque invenitur injusta. Cujus rei veritatem pate- 
facere debet sacerdotalis doctrina, sine cujus censura nulla bella sunt 
movenda.’ 

4 Walter, Naturrecht und Politik, § 473, p. 462 seq. 

5 Walter, l.c. § 474, p. 464. 

6 Walter, l.c. § 478, p. 469. In this point of view Leibnitz considered 
the Papal power in the Middle Ages most suitable (Tract. de Jure Supre- 
matus, P. iii. Op. iv. 330; Lettre seconde 4 M. Grimaret) ; and in our own 
day, David Urquhart has spoken for the establishment of a supreme tri- 
bunal of this sort, under the presidentship of the Pope (Appel d’un Pro- 
testant au Pape pour le rétablissement du Droit Public des Nations, Paris, 
1869). 

7 ¢Behind this bulwark,’ says Trendelenburg (Naturrecht, § 228), 
‘which States have formed out of the passions of mankind, and which 
they have been building up for the last three hundred years, without yet 
making it invincible, something better [?] than itself may be forming, 
while it serves to maintain peace provisionally. But aslongas this repose 
is protected only by the force of envy and jealousy, as long as only a me- 
chanical balance is calculated on, so that each one may know that there 
exists on the other side as much power of resistance as on his side of 
attack, as long as the balance of power rests not on a moral centre of 
gravity, just so long every State whose power is increasing, or who knows 
how to shift the weights, is able to disturb the balance of power, and so 
long is every State as a last resort thrown upon its own might as a safe- 
guard of its rights.’ 

8 E.g. the Paris treaty of 1856, torn up by Russia. 


The Power of the Papacy. 279 





®° Hardly has the German nation victoriously repelled the attack of its 
neighbour than the conquered party, even before all the conditions of 
peace are fulfilled, cries out for ‘revanche et vengeance.’ 


§ 4. 


Moreover, it is the business of the head of the family to 
direct the common undertakings of its members ; and naturally 
the Popes had to take in hand anything which was considered - 
to concern all the Christian nations of Europe. Thus their 
interposition in the Crusades was thought to be, and was, in 
truth, indispensable. They alone could lead and regulate such 
multitudes; they alone could secure to the sovereigns who took 
up the cross peace at home during their absence; they alone 
could insure harmony of action, and keep alive the religious 
principle which had first inspired the undertaking. The 
Council held at Clermont, 1095, by Urban II., was the origin 
of the Crusades; the Pope gave the first impulse to the vast 
movement, when he appointed the Bishop of Puy to be legate 
on the expedition, and enforced the observance of the Truce of 
God.2. The families and goods of the Crusaders were placed 
under the protection of St. Peter and the Roman Church, and 
this was renewed by the ninth General Council (1123). In 
the second Crusade, Pope Eugenius IJII.,* and in the third 
Crusade, Gregory VIII. and Clement III. were equally active.® 
Earnestly as the Popes promoted the Crusades, they never 
made them obligatory as long as the Crusaders were troubled 
with disturbances at home.® Innocent III. energetically de- 
fended the principle of these expeditions, when those taking 
part in the fourth Crusade were diverted from their purpose by 
the Venetians, and he was only in some degree appeased by the 
hope of the advantages likely to result to the Christian dominion 
in Palestine.” Even after the wreck of these expeditions, it 
was the Popes alone who for a long time opposed the power of 
the Mahometans, especially from the time that Constantinople 
fell into the hands of the Turks (1453), and when the Sultans 
were becoming daily more and more menacing to Western 
Christendom. So long as the danger continued they were 


280 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





true to the task they had once undertaken, and Pius II. and 
Pius V. in particular put forth all their strength against the 
Turks. 


1 Bossuet, P. i. 1. iv. c. v. p. 344: ‘ Placebat .... Christianis regibus 
in illis sacris bellis praecesse omnibus pontificiam potestatem, ut et con- 
junctioribus animis et majori religionis reverentia rem gererent. Saepe 
etiam reges ac principes bellum sacrum inituri se suaque omnia pontifici- 
bus tuenda commendabant,’ &c. Cf. Fleury, t. xviii. discours 6, n. 7, 8. 

‘Michaud, Hist. des Croisades, t. vi. 1. xxii. c. vii. 

2 Hefele, Cone. v. pp. 208, 207, 208. 

3 Conc. Later. i. can. 12. Hefele, v. p. 340. 

4 Hefele, v. p. 443. 

5 Hefele, ibid. p. 650 seq. 

6 Paschalis II. a. 1100, 1101, relative to Spain. Jaffé, n. 4368, 4386, 
p. 481 seq. Innoc. III, 1.i. Ep. 5, 270, 271. Migne, cexiv. pp. 5, 227 
seq. 

7 Gesta Innoc. III. n. 85 seq. p. exxxviii. seq.; 1. v. Ep. 161, 162, p. 
1178 seq.; 1. vi. Ep. 99-102 ; Ep. 230-232, pp. 103, 260 seq.; 1. ix. Hp. 139, 
p. 957 seq. 


§ 5. 

A good father, when called upon by his children, naturally 
strives his utmost to stand -by them and aid them, to defend 
them and intercede for them. In like manner the Popes were 
the refuge of allt. They would have laid themselves open to 
the bitterest reproaches had they declined to use an authority 
so much needed, and so advantageous to the public welfare, and 
which was looked upon as an adjunct to their supreme power 
in the Church.?, Whosoever felt himself oppressed turned to 
the Roman See, and if no help came to him from this See, it 
was felt to have neglected its duty. The Holy See was looked 
upon as the seat of justice and of righteousness ;? the Pope was 
the father of the orphan, the judge of the widow, the undaunted 
champion who neither refused his services to the oppressed nor 
showed favour to the oppressor ; the Roman Curia, the ‘ mis- 
tress of the world,’ was set over all men, as the avenger to 
chastise, as the judge to show mercy.® The task was a mighty 
one, and the Papal dignity a most heavy burden.® 

1 Joh. Saresb. Ep. 38, ad Hadr. IV. p. 25: Lapis adjutorii. 8. Bernard. 


Ep. 199, ad Innoc. IT. p. 367: Refugium oppressorum. 
* Bernardi, De l’origine et des progrés de la législation francaise, 


The Power of the Papacy. 285 





Paris, 1816, 1. i. ¢, ii, p.71 seq. Hurter, Innocenz III. vol. ii. p. 435, and 
elsewhere. 

5 §. Bernard. Ep. 158, p. 316, ad Innoc. II.: ‘Summge aequitatis 
sedes.’ Petrus Venerab. 1. vi. Ep. 28, ad Eugen. P. III. (Migne, elxxxix. p. 
443): ‘ Oro, obsecro, supplico, ut causam pauperis . ...vobis assumatis 
et contra potentes et violentos adversarios defendatis. Nostis enim, quod 
sedes vestra est illius, cui dicitur: Justitia et judicium praeparatio sedis 
tuae (Ps. lxxxviii. 15) et cui rursum: Justitia plena est dextera tua (Ps. 
xlvii. 11) et de quo iterum: qui facit judicium injuriam patientibus (Ps. 
exly. 7). Quod si alteri quam vobis loquerer, adderem illud Isaiae (i. 
17): Quaerite judicium, subvenite oppresso, judicate pupillo, defendite 
viduam,’ &c. 

+ $. Bern. Ep. 156, ad Innoe. II. p. 314. 

5 §. Bern. Ep. 168, ad Cardinales, c. ii. p. 328. 

6 §. Bern. Ep. 237, c. iii. p. 427: ‘Onus insuetum et nimium, quod 
et gigantinis, ut aiunt, vel ipsis quoque angelicis humeris formidabile vi- 
deatur.’ 


§ 6. 


As early as the time of Dionysius Exiguus, Papal decretals 
were included in codes of law ; they were everywhere produced 
as authorities, and treated with the highest respect.! In later 
times the collections of decretals by Gregory IX., Boniface VIII., 
and Clement V. obtained universal acceptance, and had every- 

where the force of law.2 As early as 1075, Gregory VIL was 
able to point to the fact that the law of the Roman Pontifis 
was more widely obeyed than the law of the Emperor, and 
that, in the words of Psalm xviii. 5, their sound had gone 
forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the 
world.’ Papal legislation has, moreover, done an immortal 
work for civilisation. While the civil law recognised trial by 
ordeal to decide innocence or guilt,® and even questions of law,® 
the Popes ever rejected this means of procedure :’ their decretals 
were directed towards the maintenance of the Truce of God, 
the disuse of tournaments and deadly weapons,° the abolition of 
the custom of plundering wrecked vessels, made a source of 
gain even by princes,!° the amelioration of the condition of 
serfs," the prevention of the unjust oppression of the Jews,}2 
the repression of numberless abuses and acts of violence in all 
lands.!3 Many clauses of the Roman law were altered by the 
Papal legislation, such as those relating to property, to prescrip- 


282 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





tion, and the bona fides requisite for it, as also to contracts, 
giving greater importance to good faith ;“ the laws also as to 
testamentary dispositions and oaths were greatly widened.) As 
to usury, Papal legislation dealt with it in detail.16 This, 
indeed, is nowadays made a subject of reproach to the Popes, 
and it is said that by the prohibition of the receipt of interest on 
the loan of money real usury was increased, and the welfare of 
whole countries, as well as the growth of commerce, was in- 
jured..7 But it is forgotten that this same reproach must fall, 
not on the Popes alone, but also on the Old Testament legisla- 
tion, on the whole ancient Church,!* on the Councils, which 
here stand on precisely the same ground as the Popes,!® on 
ancient civil legislation,?° and even on the older Protestant 
theologians.*!_ It is also forgotten that the present economical 
condition of society, in which money is become a productive 
commodity, and in which consequently the loan of money is 
differently regarded, has only come about gradually.22 The 
circumstances of a loan may differ widely. First, a man may 
borrow money from necessity, to get provisions for himself and 
his children, so that he makes no profit from the loan, but 
practises the most strict self-denial in order to repay it. In 
this case, the lender, if he requires interest, extorts a gain from 
the distress of his fellow-man, and makes that distress greater. 
Secondly, a man may borrow in order to purchase some source 
of income; in this case, the lender deprives himself of that 
which brings in a revenue to another, and he may justly stipu- 
late for a share in his revenue. It was on this principle that 
rested the medieval contract of census or rent, allowed even by 
canon law.?? Thirdly, a man may borrow in order to employ 
the money in a profitable speculation, which can easily be done 
where commerce and industry are flourishing. Here too interest is 
fair. The question also arises: Is the amount of interest to be 
left to agreement, or is a maximum to be fixed by the State? 
Which is the greater injury, that which hinders the capitalist 
from making still greater gains, or which exposes the distressed 
poor to the extortion of money-lenders? Surely, from the 
moral aspect, the latter.2# Consequently even Popes and 


The Power of the Papacy. 283 





Councils have approved charitable pawn-houses (montes pie- 
tatis), which for pledges made loans at very low interest to 
distressed poor, so as to protect them from the avarice of 
usurers.2? The first of the three cases we have mentioned 
above is radically different from the two others ; and, because 
in former times it was the most frequent, received especial 
attention from the legislation of the Church in protection of 
the poor. Interest on productive loans was allowed in the 
form of ‘census’ and of the contract of ‘societas.’ Special 
titles were admitted justifying interest, and known as loss 
arising through the loan (damnum emergens), cessation of gain 
(lucrum cessans), and risk of the principal (periculum sortis).”8 
It was not the business of the Church to anticipate the econo- 
mical development of Europe ; but her duty was during its 
course to guard her principles, the principles of Christian cha- 
rity forbidding us to turn the distress of our fellow-men to our 
own profit.27 It is to the honour of the Popes that they have 
fulfilled this duty. 

1 Phillips, Kirchenrecht, iv. § 171, p. 37 seq. 

2 Phillips, l.c. § 184 seq. p. 252 seq. 

3 Greg. VII. 1. ii. Ep. 75, ad Reg. Dan. p. 426, ed. Migne. 

* Cf. Kober, on the influence of the Church and her legislation on 
culture, humanity, and civilisation, in the Tiibingen Theol. Quartalschrift, 
1858, p. 466 seq. 

5 E.g. Capitul. Caris. 873. Pertz, Leg. i. pp. 519-521. Cf. Walter, 
Kirchenrecht, § 346, p. 612. 

® E.g. under Otto I., the question whether a grandchild inheriting from 
his grandfather, his father being dead, must divide the property with his 
uncles. Giesebrech, Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserzeit, i. p. 280, 
3d ed. 

7 Nicol. I. Ep. ad Carol. Calv. 867 (c. 22, c. ii. q. 5). Stephan. V. 
Ep. ad Aep. Colon. Baron. a. 890 (¢. 20, eod.). Alex. II. 1070 (ce. vii. 
§ 1, c. ii. q. 5). Lue. III. in ec. viii. Ex tuarum, v. 34, de Purg. Canon. 
Celestin. III. Innoc. III. Honor. III. in ec. i-iii. de Purgat. Vulg. v.35. In- 
nocent IIJ. 1211, renewed the prohibition of ordeals in spiritual courts 
(1. xiv. Ep. 138, p. 502), and expressed himself strongly against a bi- 
shop who had permitted the trial by red-hot iron (Il. xii. Ep. 134, p. 
320 seq.). 

§ Alex. III. in Conc. Later. iii. c. i. de Treuga et Pace, i. 34. 

® Innoc. III. c. un. de sagittar. v. 15; Alex. III. c. i. ii. de Torneam. 
vy. 13; John XXII. in c. un. h.t. (9) in Xvag. Joh.; Pius V. c. un. v. 18, 
de Taur. Agitat. in sept. 

10 Greg. VII. in Conc. Rom. 1078, Hard. vi. 1578; Paschalis II. 1110, 


284 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





Hard. l.c. p. 1898; Celestin. III. 119, Jaffé, n. 10,321, p. 889. Cf. Card. 
Petra, in Constit. Apost. t. i. p. 260 seq.275 seq. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, 
iii. pp. 91, 709; Deutches Privatrecht, i. 131, 407. Cf. also Alex. III. in 
Conc. Lat. ¢. ili. de Raptor. v. 17. 

1 Hadrian I. 790; Urban III. 1187, c. i. 3, de Conjug. Serv. iv. 9. 

12 Greg. M.1.i. Ep. 10, 34, 35, 47; 1. viii. Ep. 25; 1. ix. Ep. 7, 55; 1. xii. 
Ep. 18; 1. xiii. Ep. 12. Jaffé, n. 738, 739, 751, 1146, 1163, 1213, 1496. 
Alex. II. ad Episc. Hisp. Mansi, xix. 954. Jaffé, n. 3485, p. 398. Alex. IIT. 
(al. Clem. III.), Mansi, xxii. 355. Jaffé, n. 9038, p. 806. Greg. IX. 1235. 
Raynald. ad h.a. n. 20. 

18 Thus Alexander III. forbade the killing of children by their mothers 
in Sweden, Ep. 975, ad Aep. Upsal. (Migne, cc. p. 850) ; hindered the rob- 
bing of orphans (Ep. 968, lc. p. 845); and defended the rights of widows 
even against convents (Ep. 985-987, p. 864 seq.). He would not allow that 
the Church should ever be appointed heir, on the disinheriting of the real 
sons (Ep. 1447, pp. 1259-1261). Like Eugenius III. this same Pope for- 
bade the custom reigning in Benevento, that traders and travellers who 
fell sick in that place might make no will, and might not choose their 
place of burial, their property falling to the town, as contrary to all law, 
divine and human (Ep. 624, pp. 595-597). 

1 Walter, l.c. § 350, p. 616 seq. 

15 Thid. § 349, 353 seq. pp. 615, 620 seq. 

16 Decret. Greg. V. 19; Sext. V. 5; Clem. V.5, de Usuris. Innoce. III. 
ad Reg. Franc. 1214. D’Achery, Spicil. iii. 5, 77, Supplem. Ep. 190. 
Migne, cexvii. p. 229. Bened. XIV. Enc. 1 Nov. 1745, t. i. Const. 143. 

17 Janus, pp. 195, 236 seq. Frohschammer, Das Recht der eigenen 
Ueberzeugung, p. 229 seq. Anm. 

18 Cf. Hefele, Theol. Quartalschrift, 1847, p. 405 seq. Deut. xxiii. 19; 
St. Luke, vi. 35; Ps. xiv. 5; Ezech. xviii. 8. Tertull. adv. Marc. iv. 17 ; 
Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. ii. p. 473, ed. Potter, Can. Ap. 44. Basil, Ambros., 
Aug., Leo I. (c. i. 8, dist. 47; c. x-xii. 7; c. xiv. q. 4). 

19 Councils of Elvira, 306, c. 20; of Arles, 314, c. 12; Nicaen. i. c. 17 
(c. 2, d. 47); Agath. 506, c. 69 (cf. Hefele, i. pp. 135, 180, 405 seq. ; ii. 641) ; 
Trullan. 692, c. 10; Aquisgr. 789, c.5, 39 (Hefele, iii. 303, 623 seq.) ; 
Paris. 829, c.53; Ticin. 850, c. 19; Rhem. 1049, c. 7 (ibid. iv. 61, 70, 693) ; 
Pictay. 1078, c. 10 ; Gerund. h.a. c. 9; Londin. 1125, c. 14; Later. ii. oec. 
1139, c. 13; Turon. 1163, c. 2; Londin. 1175, c.10; Later. iii. 1179, c. 25; 
Avenion. 1209, c. 3, 13; Narbonn. 1227, c. 8; Trevir. 1227, c. 10; Roto- 
mag. 1231, c.2; Conc. Chateau Gontier, eod. a. c. 30; Arel. 1234, c. 15 
(ibid. v. 106, 117, 349, 391, 542 seq., 614, 636, 749 seq., 839, 846, 899, 902, 
919). A Council of Paris in 1212 or 1213, c. 25 (ibid. p. 774), says: ‘ Who- 
soever shall sell his wares at a certain appointed time, in order to gain 
more by them, shall be punished as an usurer.’ Further directions are 
given by the Councils of Albi, 1254, c. 61-63 ; Montpellier, 1258, 'c.3, 5; 
Mainz, 1261, c. 25, 44; Sens, 1269, c. 2, 3, 23; St. Quentin, 1271; 
Lyons, ii. 1274, c. 26, 27; Arles, 1275, c. 15, 18; Cologne, 1279, c. 14; 
Tours, 1282, c. 6; Forli, 1286, c. 6; Wiirzburg, 1287, c. 23; Milan, eod. 
a.c. 12; Pennaufiel, 1302, c.9; Nogaret, 1303, c. 14; Auch, 1308, c. 3; 
Trier, 1310, c. 31-34, 140, 141; Mainz, 1310, c. 133, 134; Bergamo, 1311, 


The Power of the Papacy. 285 





c. 24, 25; Vienne, 1313, c. 15; Marciac. 1326, c. 48; Tarracona, 1331; 
Salamanca, 1335, c. 14; Padua, 1350, c.5; Prague, 1366, c. 11; Bene- 
vent. 1378, c. 8-11; Salzburg, 1386, c. 13, &c. (Hefele, vi. 45, 51, 64, 66, 
101 seq., 136, 156, 185, 201, 213, 221, 226, 343, 354, 426, 434, 441, 446, 
458, 482 seq., 547, 553, 561, 603, 622, 803 seq., 832). Thus also later 
Diocesan Synods; Bened. XIV. de Syn. x. c. iv. n. 1. 

20 Capitul. Caroli M. 789, c. v. (Walter, Fontes, p. 50), 806, c. 9, ¢. xiv. 
q.4). Temporal judges began quite early to seize the possessions of living 
usurers (as in France) or of those who had died (as in England and Ger- 
many), and they were also punished. Vide Friedburg, de Fin. inter Eccl. 
et Civit. Reg. Judicio, p. 101 seq. 

21 Melanchthon, in the locis (cf. Schréckh, Kirchengeschichte seit der 
Reformation, i. p. 283). Dr. Jacob Strauss, preacher in Kisenach, Das 
Wucher zu nemen und zu geben, and Haubtstuck und Artikel Christen- 
licher Leer wider den unchristl. Wucher, a. 1523, art. 5: ‘Ain Pfenning 
iiber die Haubtsumme aufgeliehen, eingenommen ist wucher.’ Carpzov. 
Pract. Crim. quaest. 92, n. 4 seq. 

2 Neumann, De vicissitudinibus, quas can. jus de usur. pray. placita 
in Germ. inde a saec. 13 usque ad med. saec. 18 subierunt. Berol. 1860. 
See especially Funk, Zins und Wucher, Tiibingen, 1868. 

3 Martin V. 1420; Calist. III. 1455, in c. i. ii. de Emt. et Vendit. iii. 5, 
in Xvagg. Com. 

24 Walter, Naturrecht und Politik, § 176 seq. p.160 seq. Cf. Kirchen- 
recht, § 351, p. 618 seq. : 

25 Conc. Later. v. 1517, Sess. 10 (Hard. ix. 1773); Trid. Sess. 22, ¢. 8, 
11, de Ref. Many Catholic theologians were at first opposed to the montes 
pietatis, as may be seen in Cajetan, Com. de Mont. Piet. c. i., and Soto, 

‘1. vi. de Just. q.1, a. 6. Paul V. also treats of them (Const. 82, One- 
rosa, Bull. iii. 352). Cf. Bened. XIV. de Syn. Dioec. 1. x. c. v. n. 1. 

76 Bened. lc. c. iv. n. 2 (cf. c. iv-viii.). Devoti, Inst. Jur. Can. t. iv. 
1. iv. tit. 16, § 6 seq. Gury, Theol. Moral. t. i. p. 325 seq. n. 856 seq. 
ed. Ratisb. 1862. 

27 Cf. Funk, l.c. specially Part ii. 


§ 7. 

The attempt has often been made to represent the Papacy 
as dangerous to thrones and nations, while all that it has so 
nobly done in their favour bas been overlooked, and over-much 
stress has been laid upon isolated facts, or they have even 
been misrepresented. How much have the Popes, at great cost 
to themselves, done both for kings and for people! how many 
concessions they have made !}_ With what ardour did Gregory 
the Great defend the interests of the ungrateful Byzantine court, 
while at the same time he took under his protection the popula- 
tions oppressed by the officers of that court!? Gregory II. 


286 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





sought to prevent the separation of Italy from the empire of 
Greece ;? Gregory VII. defended the King of Denmark against 
his rebellious brothers, and warned the King of Norway not 
to give them his support. Numerous are the examples of their 
benevolent care for princes and people, of their protection of the 
weaker against the mightier kings and races, of their beneficent 
labours for the peace and welfare of Christian countries.° Victor 
II. governed excellently as regent of the empire after the death 
of Henry III.;° Innocent III. did all in his power for the 
youthful Frederick II.;’ also for the Christian kingdom in 
Palestine,® and for the prevention of the civil war in Hungary,’ 
&c.; and Gregory X. did as much for the reconciliation of the 
Guelphs and Ghibellines.?° 

Amongst the Popes, Innocent III. was preéminent as a pro- 
moter of peace.1!_ ‘The benefits,’ says Lingard, ‘ bestowed upon 
the human race through the influence and peaceful disposition of 
the Popes are not always appreciated by writers. In an age 
when warlike gains alone were prized, Europe would have sunk 
into endless wars had not the Popes striven unceasingly for the 
maintenance and restoration of peace. They rebuked the pas- 
sions of princes, and checked their unreasonable pretensions ; 
their position of common father of Christendom gave an autho- 
rity to their words which could be claimed by no other mediator ;. 
and their legates spared neither journeys nor labour in recon- 
ciling the conflicting interests of courts, and in interposing 
between the swords of contending factions the olive-branch of 
peace.1* These merits have been recognised by Protestants, 
notably by Hugo Grotius.!° 


1 Cf. Joh. v. Miiller, on the Fiirstenbund (W. ix. p. 164); Staudlin, 
Universalgeschichte der christlichen Kirche, Hanover, 1806, p. 223. 

2 For example, the populations of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, 1. v. 
Ep. 41; Mansi, ix. 1209, J. n. 991. 

3 Cf. Déllinger, Piipstfabeln. p. 152 seq.; Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 8, 
diss. 1, t. xi. p. 168 seq. 

* Gregor. VII. 1. vi. Ep. 13, p. 522. 

5 Cf. De Maistre, Du Pape, 1. iii. Concl. p. 154 seq. 

° Cf. Will, Victor. II. als Papst und deutscher Reichsverweser, re- 
printed from Hist. Pol. Blattern. 

7 Dollinger, Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte, ii. p. 189. 


The Power of the Papacy. a7 





® Innoe. III. 1. i. Ep. 302, 336, 343-345, 407, 408, 508, &e. 
® Ibid. 1. i. Ep. 10. 


10 Gregor. X. Ep. a. 1273, ad Guelfos Tusciae. Raynald. h.a. Cf. 
Joh. xxii. ib. a. 1322, n. 6 seq. 


11 Gesta Innoc. III. n. 127 seq. p. elxv. seq. Cf. 1. vi. Ep. 66, 163, 
166, 


2 Lingard, History of England, vol. iv. p. 72, German edition. 
13 Hugo Grotius, Pro Pace Eccles. t. ii. p. 659, ed. 1679: ‘ Quot dis- 
sidia sanata sint auctoritate Romanae Sedis, quoties oppressa innocentia 


ibi praesidium repererit, non alium testem quam eundem Blondellum 
volo.’ 


§ 8. 

‘There is something noble,’ writes Cesar Cantu,! ‘in the 
idea of a defenceless priest, himself a stranger to worldly inter- 
ests, watching over the contentions of princes or nations, and in 
a world ruled more by opinion than by political laws speaking 
of honesty and duty to those whose only law is caprice and 
might. Even if the reality did not exactly correspond to the 
ideal conception, still it must be allowed that the form of power 
wielded by the Church in the Middle Ages succeeded beyond 
all systems since contrived in maintaining a free and powerful 
confederacy between the nations of the West. The tyranny of the 
Popes, as it is called, humbled princes only in order to enlighten 
them, and never to degrade them. It would be folly to attribute 
the growth of the Papal authority to cunning and ambition ; the 
Popes might have increased their possessions or their political 
power, as did other princes ; but they forbore to do so, and never 
enlarged their territory an inch through the means usually em- 
ployed by princes, namely, conquest. Unlike in character, in 
ability, and in inclination, they all strove to attain one and the 
same end, and differed only in the means of which they made 


? 


use. 

In truth, the Popes, though of different nationalities, 
mostly Italian, but also German, French, Spanish, &c., sons of 
the poorest as well as of the most distinguished families, often 
weak and aged, by a rare exception in the strength of manhood, 
at one time men able and versatile in law and in diplomacy, 
at another, ascetics brought up in the cloister, now surrounded 
by tokens of homage and reverence, now visited with bitter 


288° Principles of the Middle Ages. 





adversity and menaced hy rebellious subjects,—still, in spite of 
all these differences, are alike in the guiding principle of their 
lives.? There, side by side with Hadrian IV., an aged English- 
man of poor origin, we see Innocent III., in the freshness of 
youth, and sprung from the noble family of Conti. The 
long line of Popes rises before the mind, as they are impressed 
on the memory by the partly historical mosaics in the Roman 
Basilica of St. Paul; we recall the deep veneration with which 
they have not rarely inspired their most bitter opponents ; 
we cast a glance at the 10,749 Papal Briefs collected by Ph. 
Jaffé, and reaching only up to the year 1198; then at the 
register of Innocent III., containing almost 3440 Briefs; the 
collection of Decretals and Councils, and the still imperfect col- 
lection of Bulls, and we ask ourselves what monarchy can point 
to rulers approaching them in the splendour of their line or in 
the magnificence of their deeds. 

‘In the higher interests of life,’ continues Cantu, ‘ they one 
after another manifested the same unchangeable will, while in 
merely temporal matters they pursued a policy as fluctuating as 
is human nature itself; hence in the first case their power was 
irresistible, while in the second they were often scarcely able to 
defend themselves against the weakest of foes. Great and tumul- 
tuous nations, with dynasties equal in power to the Pope’s, or 
kings greedy of conquest, robbed the Pope of his lands, and 
took possession of his person; but his voice sounded none the 
less terrible and awe-inspiring even to the remotest quarters of 
the world, and nations awoke to the consciousness that above 
the mighty of this world a power existed which had set a limit to 
their career of crime, and put a stop to the despotism in which 
sovereigns indulge only when they know there is no longer an 
authority above them.’ 


1 Cantu, Weltgeschichte, book x. c. xv. vol. vi. P. i. p. B38; edition re- 
vised by Dr. Will, Schaffhausen, 1863. 

2 The venerable Peter of Clugny wrote to Innocent II. 1. i. Ep. 1: 
‘Nihil nos a pastore, nihil a Petro, nihil a Christo, quae omnia in te ha- 
bemus, separare poterit. Et Petrus in carcere, Clemens in exilio, Mar- 
cellus in catabulo, non minus quam Laterani Ecclesiae praefuerunt et oves 
Christi eis ut veris pastoribus obedierunt.’ 


The Power of the Papacy. 289 





§ 9. 


The objection that such power is contrary to the spirit of 
the Gospel has often been raised, but never really made good.} 
Christ did not forbid the exercise of all authority to His follow- 
ers, but only an authority of tyranny and violence, such as was 
exercised by the princes of the heathen.? His precepts (St. Luke 
xxxil. 25 seq.; St. Matt. xx. 25 seq.) apply not alone to the 
clergy, but to all the faithful: temporal rulers, just as much as 
spiritual, are forbidden to govern tyrannically, as did the princes 
of the heathen ; all Christians, in dealing with those subject to 
them, are to exercise humility and mildness ; he who is in autho- 
rity is to look upon his office as a service; to rule is to tend a 
flock (pascere), not to domineer (dominari).* This was ever the 
interpretation ofthe Fathers. The Popes themselves looked 
upon their exalted power not as a dominion, but as a servitude ; 
not as a personal gain, but as a heavy burden ; they kept before 
their eyes the words of Scripture (St. Luke xxii. 25 seq.).° Pre- 
cisely similar were the words of St. Bernard to Engenius III., 
when he told him that his duty was to serve rather than to 
rule ; that he was not a ruler, but a steward bound to render 
strict account ;° that he was placed over others, but only to 
labour more heavily, like the farmer who has to root out weeds 
and sow good seed; that the words of Jeremias i. 10 apply to 
him ;7 that he must everywhere scare away evil beasts ;§ that he 
was the rod of the mighty, the hammer of tyrants, the father of 
kings ;° he moreover recognises in the Pope one who presides 
over princes, the ruler of bishops, the regulator of empires and 
kingdoms.!° The saint does not consider that in this the least 
injury is done to the coordination of the two powers, which he 
so beautifully describes in the following words!!: ‘ Kinghood 
and priesthood could not have been united in a more lovely or 
more lovable form, or at the same time in a union closer and 
firmer, joining them completely in one, than was the case in the 
person of our Lord, where the two were equally united, since in 
His human nature He became at once our priest and our king. 
But this is not all: He has moreover united the two by a close 

VOL. I. U 


290 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





bond in His body, that is in the Christian people, of which He 
is the Head, so that this race of mankind was called by the 
apostle a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood (1 St. Peter 
xi. 9). That which God has united let not man put asunder ; 
the two are to be united in their views, as they were in their 
origin ; they are mutually to cherish and defend each other, 
mutually to bear one another’s burdens.’!2 

' Cf. Bianchi, t. iii. 1. i. c. i. § 8, n. 5-9, pp. 82-86. .M. Gerbert, de 
Legit. Eccl. Pot. 1. i. c. ii. § 1, n. 6, p. 70 seq. 

2 The karaxupevew and kuretovoidfew express this clearly, as, follow- 
ing Erasmus, Fritzsche, Meyer, and K. B. Hase (H. Stephani, Thes. v. 
katakuptevw) remark. Josue xv. 16 has xataxvprevew—Latin, percutere. Cf. 
Joh. Sarisb. Polyer. 1. vili. c. xxiii. Innoc. III. serm. 2, in Annivers. Con- 
secr. Petrus Comestor. c. cxcv., in Evangel. 

* 1 St. Peter v. 1 seq. romatvew is opposed to karaxupreve. In other 
places pascere—regere, as appears from comparing the Bible passages in 
the. Greek, Hebrew, and Latin: Ps. lxxvii. 70, 71; Ps. lxxix. 1,2; Ps. ii. 
Oh ect. Apoc, 1. 2739s: 1d Mich, v:°2>-ch; Matt: iis 6.22 Kings:-y5.2% 
Ezech. xxxiv. 23; Isaias xliv. 28; 1 Paral. xvii. 6; Jer. xxiii. 2,4; Acts xx. 
28; Ps. xxii. 1. Thus in Homer, IL. ii. 85, 243, the king is spoken of as 
TOLLeva AAWY. ° 

4 Chrys. in Matt. hom. 65, al. 66, n. 4 (Migne, lviii.622). Bernard. de 
Consid. 1. ii. c. vi. n. 10, p. 748. Cf. Petrus Bles. de Instit. Episcopi ; 
Migne, cclvii. p. 1103. 

5 Jnnoc. III. 1. vi. Ep. 229, p. 259; Alexio Imp. Cpl. (1203): ‘Hoc 
autem [what he had said of patrocinium] dicimus, non ut ambitiose domi- 
nium affectemus, sed ut officiose ministerium impendamus, ejus exemplo, 
qui non venit ministrari, sed ministrare, nec ut dominemur in clero, sed 
forma gregis efficiamur ex animo; quia principes gentiwm dominantur 
eorum, et qui potestatem habent inter eos, benefici vocantur, inter dis- 
cipulos autem Christi non sic ; sed qui major est inter eos, omnium servus 
existit et qui praecessor tamquam sit ministrator (S. Luc. xxii. 25, 26).’ 

6 De Consid. 1. ii. c. vi. n. 10, 11, on the texts quoted: ‘ Planum est, 
quod Apostolis interdicitur dominatus ; ergo et tu tibi usurpare cave aut 
dominans Apostolatum aut Apostolicus dominatum. Planum est quia ab 
utroque prohiberis; si utrumque similiter habere voles, perdes utrumque. 
Alioquin non te exceptum illorum numero putes, de quibus conqueritur 
Dominus dicens : Ipsiregnaverunt, et non ex me, principes exstiterunt, et 
non cognovi (Ose. viii. 4). Forma Apostolica haec est: dominatio inter- 
dicitur, indicitur ministratio. N.12: Exi, O Eugeni, exi in mundum. 
Ager enim mundus est, ipse tibi creditus est.. Exi in illum, non tamquam 
dominus, sed tanquam villicus, videre et procurare unde exigendus es red- 
dere rationem.’ 

7 L. ii. c. vi, nv 9: ‘ Factum te superiorem dissimulare nequimus, sed 
enim ad quid, omnimodis attendendum. Non enim ad dominandum opinor. 
Nam et propheta quum similiter levaretur, audivit: wt evellas et destruas, 
et disperdas et dissives, et aedifices et plantes. Quid horum fastum sonat? 


The Power of the Papacy. 291 





Rusticani magis sudoris schematé quodam labor spiritualis expressus est. 
Et nos ergo ut multum sentiamus de nobis, impositum senserimus ministe- 
rium non dominatum datum. Disce exemplo prophetico praesidere, non 
tam ad imperitandum, quam ad factitandum quod tempus requirit; disce 
sarculo tibi opus esse, non sceptro, ut opus facias prophetae. Et quidem 
ille non regnaturus ascendit, sed exstirpaturus.’ From this the author of 
the writing de Postestate Papae (in the Appendix to Dupuy, Hist. du Dif- 
férend) deduces a superioritas quantum ad officium praedicationis et 
correctionis in spiritualibus, non autem quantum ad dominium alicujus 
jurisdictionis in temporalibus; but this last even the Popes have never 
claimed, as has been falsely supposed. 

8 Bern. l.c. n. 13: ‘Si cor movisti, movenda jam lingua, movenda est 
et manus. <dccingere gladio tuo, gladio spiritus, quod est verbum Dei. 
Glorifica manum et brachium dexterum in faciendo vindictam in nationi- 
bus, increpationes in populis, in alligando reges eorum in compedibus et 
nobiles eorum in manicis ferreis (Ps. cxlix. 7, 8). Si haec facis, honori- 
ficas ministerium tuum et ministerium te. Non mediocris est iste princi- 
patus ; exturbare est hoc malas bestias a terminis tuis, quo greges tui se- 
curi in pascua educantur.’ John of Paris also appeals to this passage (ap. 
Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 13 et 14, diss. 9, a. 2, n. 18, t. xvi. pp. 328, 329), 
and remarks on Jer. i. 10, that according to some the words are said in 
persona Christi, according to others de persona Jeremiae, but that the latter 
dethroned no king, but was set over people and kings, annunciando et 
praedicando vera, as in Ps. ii.6; that the words are used non de evulsione 
et destructione regum mundi et subrogatione aliorum, sed de destructione 
vitiorum et plantatione fidei et morum. . . . Hoc magis faciunt sacerdotes 
de fide et moribus respondendo, quam potentia saeculari dominando. But 
everything essentially depends upon the judicare de peccato, of which 
alone there was question here, and not of dethronement. And it was 
precisely the judicare de peccato which St. Bernard defended. ‘In cri- 
minibus,’ he says to the Pope, ‘non in possessionibus potestas vestra’ (1. i. 
©. Vis D. 7): 

® §. Bern. 1. iv. c. xxi.: ‘ Ultor scelerum, virga potentium, malleus 
tyrannorum, regum pater... .postremo Deus Pharaoni.’ Cf. Bianchi, t. ii. 
1. v. § 12, n. 5, 6, p. 326 seq. 

1° Onthe elevation ofhis scholar Eugenius, St. Bernard (Ep.237) wrote to 
the cardinals, and expressed his astonishment at the election of this monk : 
‘Ridiculum profecto videtur, pannosum homuncionem assumi ad praesi- 
dendum principibus, ad imperandum episcopis, ad regna et imperia dispo- 
nenda. Ridiculum an miraculum? Plane unum horum. Non nego, non 
diffido posse fuisse hoc etiam opus Dei, qui facit mirabilia magna solus.’ 
Abbé Leroy, in a note to Bossuet, P. i. 1. iii. c. xv. p. 307, seeks to weaken 
these words, the meaning of which is urged by Bianchi, l.c. n.3; Gosselin, 
ii. 239 seq. explains: ‘In so far as the Pope, through advice and admoni- 
tion, has power to dispose of the material sword, he has also power to 
dispose of empires and kingdoms.’ Even if the aforesaid expression is 
hyperbolical, this interpretation is evidently not strong enough. 

1 §. Bern. Ep. 244, c. i. pp. 440, 441, ed. Migne. 

? Cf. Bern. de Consid. ii. 8; Alvar. Pelag. de Planctu Eccl. 1. i. c. xiii. 


2.92 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





§ 10. 


It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages the power of 
the Popes (and also of Councils) was great and extensive, but 
it did not spring up all at once from the earth, nor was it won 
by a bold and sudden stroke. ‘The Popes,’ says Phillips, ‘ did 
not then (in the MiddJe Ages) for the first time become the suc- 
cessors of St. Peter; they did not then for the first time receive 
the power of binding and loosing, or the office of supreme 
teacher and of king; but then it was for the first time that St. 
Peter in his successors could fully enforce upon the whole 
Christian community, voluntarily subject to him in Christ, the 
obedience which he could claim as a gift from our Saviour, given 
in reward of his love. The principle itself of the subordina- 
tion of the temporal to the spiritual power was not new, but 
the forms merely in which that principle was put forward, and 
these were only new in part. In the Middle Ages the religious 
principle was applied to all the relations of human life, social, 
civil, municipal, and domestic, with the best result, while ill- 
success chiefly ensued when this principle was applied wrongly, 
perversely, or not at all. Had the same course been continued, 
had every separate part of the great edifice been perfected, and 
at the same time had every material improvement been made 
use of, which was put at our disposal by newly-discovered coun- 
tries and routes, by progress in the natural sciences, by re- 
searches into subjects formerly little cultivated, and by the 
extension of trade and industry, and, at the same time, had the 
ancient principles of religion and morals been left unassailed, 
Christian nations would have been preserved from numberless 
dissensions and troubles, and without prejudice to their moral 
welfare would have attained to a high grade of material pro- 
sperity.2 But ancient traditions were cast aside, the principle 
of authority was assailed, and the age of revolution introduced ; 
society sank back into heathenism ; political, social, and domes- 
tic life were withdrawn from the influence of Christianity ; that 
was put asunder which up till then had been closely united— 
politics from morals, morals from religion, education, the State, 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 293 





and the family from the Church. The era of revolution is far 
from being at an end, as so many imagine; on the contrary, we 
are still in the very midst of it; we are tasting of its fruits, 
and ever dropping its seeds into the well-prepared soil, from 
which again fresh trees of the same species spring up. 

In the mean time some will never forgive the Popes of the 
Middle Ages for dethroning kings and princes, and releasing 
their subjects from their oath of allegiance. The question is 
never asked, How often, on what grounds, and with what right 
this was done? the act is in itself condemned. But on closer 
examination, if we consider the legal relations of all the parties 
concerned, and take into account the public law of the medieval 
States, the prevailing acceptation of the oath of allegiance, which 
was never given unconditionally and to hold good in any event ; 
if, moreover, we remember the civil and spiritual laws which 
worked together in producing such a state of things, the fact 
which seems to be so strange becomes clearly intelligible. 

Let us, in the following pages, enter upon this examination. 

1 Phillips, Kirchenrecht, iii. § 126, p. 181 seq. Cf. also Christophe, 


das Papsthum im 14 Jahrhundert, trans. by Ritter, vol. i. p. 38 seq. 
2 Cf. Balmes, vol. ili. c. lxxi. seq. p. 387 seq. 


Part III. ExcoMMUNICATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES IN THE 
MIppieE AGEs. 


§ 1. Temporal effects of public penance and of excommunication. § 2. 
Exclusion from public offices. § 3. From military service. Excep- 
tions. § 4. Intercourse with the excommunicated. § 5. Discipline 
mitigated, § 6. or increased. § 7. Kings also liable to excommunica- 
tion. § 8. Release from the oath of allegiance. § 9. Can the Church 
dispense oaths? § 10. Who can dispense oaths? § 11. Examples. 
§ 12. Principles relating to dispensation from oaths. § 13. More recent 
times. § 14. Deposing rare. § 15. The eleventh Ecumenical Council. 
§ 16. The first Council of Lyons. § 17. Councils of Constance and 
Basle. § 18. Councils pass the same sentences as Popes. § 19, 20. 
Objections. § 21, 22. Answers. 


§ 1. 
In the Middle Ages it was natural, from the state of society, 
that public ecclesiastical penance and the penalty of excom- 


294 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





munication should involve temporal consequences. In the 
ancient Church all grave crimes were punished by heavy public 
penances, to which many sinners submitted voluntarily.! Com- 
monly in the West, from the fourth to the eighth century, 
though the rule was not everywhere enforced with equal 
severity, persons performing such penances were forbidden to 
solemnise marriage, or to live in wedlock, to hold public offices, 
especially the office of judge, to serve in war, and to take holy 
orders.” In later times also, when public penances were becom- 
ing more and more rare, these precepts held good in the case of 
the more grievous sins: persons guilty of certain notorious 
crimes were to be compelled by excommunication to submit to 
public penance ; in case of refusal the temporal arm was to force 
them to obedience ; indeed dukes and earls who refused to assist 
in this were punished with excommunication, with temporal 
penalties, and even with the loss of their rank.4 The Council 
of Paris (846) punished sacrilege, rape, and adultery with pub- 
lic penance ;° the Council of Mainz (847) declared : ‘ Whosoever 
has sinned publicly shall do penance publicly ;° so also said the 
Council of Pavia (850), and it moreover declared that no ex- 
communicated person might hold a state office or perform 
military service ;’ the Council of Worms (868) forbade those 
guilty of the murder of priests and other crimes to bear arms.® 
By decree of the Council of Tribur (895) any person excom- 
municated by the bishop, and refusing to do penance, was to be 
seized and taken before the king for punishment.? “Earlier 
Councils enjoined that any one returning to worldly business, 
after having been numbered amongst the penitents, was not to 
be admitted to Communion until he once more went back to 
the performance of the penance he had vowed,10 


1 Joh. Morinus, Com. Hist. de disciplina in admin. Sacr. Poenitent. 
olim observata, Paris, 1651, 1. v.18 seq. 24; 1. vii. c. iv. seq. Frank, 
Bussdisciplin, Mainz, 1867, p. 444 seq. 

2 Leo M. Ep. 167, ad Rustic. Narbon. c. 10-13. Cf. c. 3, d. 5, de 
Poen. ; Siric, Ep. ad Himer. ; Taracon. c. 5; Nicol. I. Ep. 19, ad Rodulf. 
Bituric. Conc. Arelat. ii. 443-452, c. 21,22. Aurel. iii. 538, c. 24, 25. 
Barcinon. i. 540, c. 6, 7, 8; ii. 599, c. 4. Tolet. iv. 633, c. 54, 55; vi. 
638, c. 7; xii. 681, c. 2 (Hefele, Conc. ii. p. 283 seq. 755, 757 ; iii. pp. 56, 
78, 83, 287). 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 295 





3 Capitul. 1. vi. n. 71, 98. 

* Capit. Tribur. 822, n. 6, p. 629, ed. Baluz.; Capit. 1. v.n. 300, p. 885; 
vil. n. 258, 432, 433. 

5 Can. 61, 64, 69 (Hefele, iv. pp. 111, 112). 

® C.31 (Hefele, lc. p. 122). 

7 C. 6, 12 (Hefele, p. 169). 

8 C. 26 (Hard. v. 741; Hefele, p. 356). 

°C. 3 (Hefele, p. 532). 

1 Conc. Aurel. i. 511, ec. 11; Epaon. 517, c. 23 (Hefele, ii. pp. 645, 
664). 


§ 2. 

How widespread was the custom, that penitents were de- 
barred from holding public offices, is shown by the following 
fact amongst others. At the instigation of the ambitious Count 
Erwig, King Wamba of Spain, after being deprived ‘of his 
senses, had his hair shaved, like a dying man, and was placed 
in the rank of penitents, so as to render it impossible for him 
to reign longer. Wamba, although he regained his senses, re- 
mained a voluntary penitent, and was succeeded by Erwig, 
whom he himself recommended, and who was acknowledged by 
the Council of Toledo (681), after an examination of the testi- 
mony of the nobles.1 The case of Lewis the Pious (833) also 
illustrates the discipline of that day. Lewis had been pro- 
claimed sole emperor by his adherents, and his son Lothair, 
having got him into his power, wished to make it impossible 
for him ever to reign. As early as 830 the demand had been 
made that the aged emperor should suffer himself to be shorn, 
and should enter a monastery ; now, on his knees before the 
high altar of the church of St. Medardus at Soissons, he was 
forced to read publicly a list of his sins, to exchange his sword 
and his armour for the dress of a penitent, and with the usual 
imposition of hands by the bishop to receive a penance ;? he 
did not however become amonk. All this was approved by the 
bishops in the Council of Compiégne. The sentence was with- 
out doubt most unjust, and the whole proceeding wicked,’ and 
as such it was afterwards recognised and declared null and void ; 
but this did not alter the conviction that the imposition of a 
public penance was the most certain and legitimate means by 


296 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





which a prince could be deprived of the throne. Later (867), 
the Council of Troyes wrote as follows on this subject to Pope 
Nicholas I.: ‘By the permission of God, the just Judge, and 
through the influence of the’ malice of the devil, the sons of the 
pious Emperor Lewis of worthy memory, together with a party 
of evil-minded men, but without the counsel and consent of Pope 
Gregory (IV.) (whom Lothair had caused to leave Rome under 
pretext of keeping the peace), robbed their father of the empire, 
and took him prisoner as far as the town of Soissons. And to 
make people believe that he was justly deposed from the throne, 
certain crimes were devised against him, for which they pre- 
tended that by the sentence of certain bishops, amongst whom 
it was said Ebbo (of Rheims) was specially active,* he was on 
pretext of public penance shut out from the threshold of the 
Church. Ebbo afterwards published a document, in which he 
acknowledged that the ignominious deposition of the emperor 
had been neither canonical norjust.’° The deed was designated 
as materially but not formally contrary to justice. When the 
aged emperor was set free by his adherents, and was begged to 
reign once more, he said: ‘The Church cast me down, the 
Church must raise me up again ; the bishops disarmed me, and 
the bishops must restore to me my weapons.’ This was done at 
the assembly of Diedenhofen in February 835. Each bishop 
had to read aloud his written opinion on the restoration of 
Lewis ; they all expressed themselves in his favour, even Ebbo 
himself, who at the same time acknowledged his own guilt. In 
the cathedral of Metz it was proclaimed that Lewis had been 
unjustly deposed ; he was reconciled by the imposition of hands 
and by prayers said over him, and then the imperial crown was 
replaced upon his head.6 The canon which forbade public 
penitents to exercise their offices was never called in question, 
put only its application to Lewis for crimes, half of which were 
unproved, and half long ago atoned for.’ It is objected that 
Lewis had before, in 822, done penance at Attigny, without 
being considered to have thereby lost his right of reigning.® 
But his penance at Attigny was voluntary, and not imposed 
according to the form of the canon for convicted criminals ; 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 297 





Lewis was then reconciled to his sons, acknowledged himself to 
be a sinner, gave copious alms, and promised to abolish all 
abuses ; he begged for absolution and the imposition of a pen- 
ance, but he did not shave his head or renounce the use of 
weapons, or receive the laying on of hands, as was usual with 
penitents,® and as was done in 833, when a formal episcopal sen- 
tence had been passed upon him. The two ecclsiastical acts of 
822 and 833 were totally distinct in signification and in effect.1° 
The bishops assembled at Compiégne considered the sentence 
passed upon Lewis as an exercise of their authority. 

It is further objected that the deposition of Lewis had taken 
place before the assembly met at Compiégne, and was looked 
upon by the bishops as already accomplished.!? This may be 
fully granted ;!° but the deed of violence had to receive a legal 
form, and to be made to a certain degree legitimate and irrevoc- 
able by the Church ; just as Lothair afterwards sought to justify 
himself by the sentence of the bishops,!* and the learned Ago- 
bard of Lyons didall in his power for this same end.!° When Lewis 
was reinstated the bishops who were implicated were charged with 
abuse, but not with usurpation, of power. It is indeed said that at 
Compiégne Lothair alone was styled emperor, and not his father ;!° 
but it must be remembered that Lothair had been joint emperor 
since 817-818, and long bore the imperial title,” which was not 
then given him for the first time ; and moreover that though the 
government of the empire had been entirely withdrawn from 
the old emperor, Lothair needed a more complete justification 
in the eyes of the people, and hoped to obtain it from the 
transactions at Compiégne, which were therefore published with 
the superscription, exauctoratio Ludovict. The principle that 
canonical penance deprived him of the throne comes out clearly 
enough.1® 


1 Cone. Tolet. xii.c. 1. Lucas Tudel. ap. Morin. l.c. 1. v. ¢. 7, n. 2 seq. ; 
ce. xxi.n. 5. Hefele, iii. pp. 286, 287. 

2 Hard. Cone. iv. p. 1382. Hefele, iv. pp. 72, 78 seq. 

3 So says not only Bossuet (Defens. P. i. 1. ii. c. xxi. p. 229 seq. and 
Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 9, diss. 11, n. 1), but also Bianchi (t. i. 1. iii. § 3, 
p. 458 seq.), Mamachi (Antiquit. t. iv. p. 189), and earlier, Baron. (a. 833, 
t. ix. p. 805). 


248 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





4 Theganus reproaches him with: ‘Tu eum falso judicio voluisti ex- 
pellere a solio patrum suorum.’ Walafrid Strabo, in his poem, represents 
the restitution of Lewis as most difficult: ‘Nam quid erat moesto tam 
desperabile regno, quam sua depositis iterato posse venire sceptra ?’ 

5 Hard. v. 682. 

® Hefele, iv. pp. 79, 81 seq. 

7 Thus Astron. in Vita Ludov. n. 49: ‘Ut pro his, de quibus jam poe- 
nitudinem gesserat imperator, iterum publica poenitentia, armis depositis, 
irrevocabiliter, quodammodo Ecclesiae satisfacere judicaretur, quum ne 
forenses quidem leges contra unam culpam semel comissam bis invehant 
vindictam et nostra lex habeat, Deum non judicare bis in id ipsum... . 
Ad judicatum ergo cum absentem et inauditum nec confitentem neque con- 
victum....arma deponere et ante altare ponere cogunt.’ Cf. Flodoard, 
a. 834 ; Annal. Bertin. a. 833 ; Fuld. a. 834 (Rer. Gall. vi. ed. 1749, pp. 214, 
195, 210) ; Narrat. Cleric. Rhemens, a. 833; Vita Ven. Wallae Abb. Walafr. 
Carm. (ib. pp. 270, 292 seq.). 

8 Bossuet, l.c. p. 230. 

9 §. Cyprian, Ep. 15-17, ed. Oxon. Conc. Agath. 506, c. 15 (Morin. 1.c.). 
Aubespine, in Optat. Milev. Observ. v. p. 165, ed. 1676. 

10 Bianchi, l.c. n. 3-5, pp. 464-469. Mamachi, l.c. pp. 191, 192. 

1 Hard. iv. 1379: ‘Et hoc....manifestare juxta injunctum nobis 
ministerium curavimus, qualis sit vigor et potestas sive ministerium sacer- 
dotale et quali merentur damnari sententia, qui monitis sacerdotalibus 
obedire noluerint. Deinde tam memorato principi quam cuncto ejus po- 
pulo denunciare studuimus, ut Domino devotissime placere studerent et 
in quibus eum offenderint, placare non different.’ 

12 Bossuet, l.c. p. 231. 

13 Cf. Nithard, Hist.1.i. p. 69, a. 833; Annal. Bertin. h.a. ; Thegan. de 
Gest. Lud. p. 82; Astron, h.a. p. 114. 

14 According to Astron, he declared: ‘ Nullum plus se compati paternae 
calamitati vel congaudere prosperitati, nec debere sibi imputari culpam 
senioris sibi oblati, quum ipsi eum destituissent ac prodidissent, neque car- 
ceralis custodiae naevum sibi jure inuri, quum constaret hoc actum judicio 
episcopali.’ 

15 Agobardi, Opp. ed. Migne, t. civ. p. 287 seq. 

16 Agobard in the Chartula Porrecta Lothario speaks of the ‘ignavia 
Ludovici venerandi, quondam imperatoris ;’ in the documents of Com- 
piégne mention moreover is made of ‘regnum D. Ludovico Imperatori a 
Deo ad regendum sub magna pace commissum.’ Besides Lewis is there 
called ‘ princeps, venerabilis vir.’ 

17 Lothair’s reign is reckoned in various ways: sometimes from his 
joint government, sometimes from his coronation by Paschal I., some- 
times from the date of his Italian kingdom, sometimes from the death 
of his father. 

18 Bianchi, n. 7, pp. 471, 472. Mamachi, p. 194. Phillips, iii. § 122, 
p. 97 seq. 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 299 





§ 3. 


After the ninth century certain exceptions were made to the 
rule that penitents should not return to military service. Pope 
Nicholas I. gave the Archbishop of Bourges power to dispense 
on this point, and in another case he permitted arms to be borne 
against the heathen in urgent necessity.? A later Council at 
Rheims, which enjoined canonical penances for those taking part 
in the battle between King Charles and his rival, King Robert, 
dispensed from the performance of penance, amongst other times, 
during sickness and military service? Gregory VII. strove to 
maintain the ancient discipline, together with the mitigations 
of Nicholas I. ; soldiers performing penance were to lay down 
their arms, unless they were defending the cause of justice by 
the advice of the bishop.* In the mean time other works of 
satisfaction became more and more frequent, and the Council of 
Clermont (1095) permitted a crusade undertaken with pure in- 
tention to take the place of every penance.> From that time 
princes who were conscious of heavy guilt often voluntarily 
took up the cross in expiation, as for example King Lewis VII. 
of France (1145).° 

1 Raban. Maur. Ep. ad Heribald. Autissiod, c. xvi. p. 498 seq. 

2 Nicol. I. Ep. 19, al. 39, ad Rod. Bitur. c. iv.; Ep. 17, al. 5, ad 
Rivol. Ep. 

3 Cone. Rhem. a. 924 (Labbé, ix. p. 581). 

* Conc. Rom. Nov. 1078, c. 5 (Labbé, x. p. 373 ; Migne, PP. Lat. cxlviii. 
p- 801; Hefele, v. p. 114). 


5 Can. 2 (Hefele, l.c. p. 298). 
®° Hefele, p. 442 seq. 


§ 4, 

It is a fact of still greater importance that, from the most 
ancient times in the Church, excommunicated persons were not 
only deprived of spiritual goods in the external communion of 
the Church, but were moreover forbidden certain acts of inter- 
course with their fellow-men, such as intimate converse with 
them, embracing them, eating with them, &c. Intercourse with 
excommunicated persons was commonly punished with excom- 
munication,! by the later laws with the lesser excommunica- 


3Cc0 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





tion if it were not a case of complicity in crime.2— When pub- 
lic penances were disused, and ecclesiastical penalties, especially 
censures, were more commonly employed against the passions 
and violence both of the higher and lower classes, sovereigns 
themselves looked upon them as the most efficient means of 
checking the prevailing licentiousness, and attached to these 
penalties effects on civil life analogous to those effects which 
they had long been pronounced to have on the ‘spiritual life.* 
As early-as 595 King Childebert ordered that any one who made 
an incestuous marriage, and by thus disobeying the bishop 
incurred excommunication, was to be driven from the king’s 
palace and deprived of his property in favour of his lawful re- 
lations.4 The Council of Verneuil, assembled by King Pipin 
in 765, directed that if any cleric or layman guilty of incest, 
and refusing amendment in spite of the admonition of the 
bishop, were in consequence excommunicated, all those who 
knowingly held intercourse with him should incur the same ex- 
communication. The effect of this excommunication was, that 
such a one might not enter a church, or eat and drink with 
Christians ; no one might accept a gift from him, kiss him, pray 
with him, or salute him, until he had been reconciled by his 
bishop. If any man considered himself unjustly excommuni- 
cated he might apply to the metropolitan, but was obliged, in 
the mean time, to obey the sentence. If any one treated the 
whole affair with contempt, and the bishop failed to move him 
to amendment, he was to be punished with exile, by sentence 
of the king.’ In the Capitularies excommunicated persons were 
deprived of their goods and possessions, and if for two years 
they stubbornly refused to make satisfaction to the Church, or 
despised her penalties, they were sentenced to transportation or 
banishment.® Lothair I. commanded that such obstinate sinners 
should be punished with imprisonment ;’ Arnulf (895) ordered 
them to be brought by the counts before the judgment-seat of 
the king.8 In England King Etheldred (1008) forbade the ex- 
communicated, until their pardon had been pronounced, to dwell 
in the neighbourhood of the court ; and King Canute afterwards 
condemned to death and confiscation of property those who 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 30% 





gave shelter to an excommunicated or outlawed person.? A 
London Council (1151) renewed the old law, that whoever re- 
mained in a state of excommunication a whole year became 
completely infamous.!° 

As had been the case in earlier ages,!! the temporal arm was 
employed against those who were obstinately impenitent. John 
of Salisbury, when Bishop of Chartres (1180), relates in a public 
letter how King Henry of England compelled the excommuni- 
cated Count John of Vendome to seek reconciliation with the 
Church.!2_ As a general rule, excommunicated persons who: 
were not reconciled within a certain space of time forfeited 
their civil rights, and incurred political proscription.’ They 
were considered incapable of appearing in court as plaintiffs or 
witnesses, that thus they might be moved to self-examination 
and repentance for their sins.1+ Peter, King of Aragon, directed 
(1210) that those who remained under anathema four months 
should pay a fine of 400 shillings, the same sum after another 
four months, and that at the end of the year they should become 
outlaws and infamous.’ According to the fourth Lateran 
Council (1215), canon 3, and the laws of Frederick II. (1220), 
those who made no satisfaction after one year of excommunica- 
tion were infamous, and incapable of holding any office or 
dignity ;!° indeed, by the laws just named, and by the ancient 
code of Swabian law," the civil judge had power to proscribe 
an excommunicated person as an outlaw, if he remained under 
anathema six weeks anda day. Excommunication and political 
proscription were deemed precisely analogous ; the one followed 
upon the other. Neither the outlawed nor the excommunicated 
could appear in court as plaintiffs, though they were forced to 
suffer actions to be brought against themselves.1$ According to- 
several Councils of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, any 
person remaining a year under anathema was to be forced by 
the State, especially by means of confiscation of property, to: 
reconcile himself with the Church ;!® some Councils specified 
the penalty to be loss of property ;?° others settled certain tem- 
poral punishments, especially fines, for those who remained even 
a short time under anathema.”!_ The Council of Cognac (1238) 


302 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





inflicted a fine of ten pounds upon those remaining forty days 
under anathema; the Council of Beziers (1246) inflicted fines 
increasing to the entire loss of property ; the Council of Avignon 
(1326) also imposed fines, and threatened those judges who 
should neglect to act.22 According to a Council of Avignon 
(1209) any one remaining under anathema for six months 
could be absolved by the Pope alone.?? Some Councils decided 
that he who persisted in a state of excommunication a year 
should forfeit all rights of inheritance, and only be readmitted 
to the sacraments after performing severe public penance ;** 
others, that he should be treated as a heretic, or as one suspected 
of heresy. Together with these various directions, there was 
one universal rule, that as long as the excommunication lasted 
no intercourse was to be held with the person under anathema, 
except in order to bring him back to submission to the Church ; 
no obedience was due to him,%6 neither was he entitled to ad- 
minister any public office.%7 


1 1Cor. v. 11; 2 Thess. iii. 14; 2 Joh. x.11. Iven. adv. Haer. iii. 3. 
Ambros. Ep. 40, ad. Theodos. Synes. Ep. 58. Isidor. Hispal. in can. 18, 
c. xi. g. 3. Nicol. I. can. 3; ibid. can. ap. 11, 13 (al. 10,12). Antioch. 
c.2. Carth. 387-390, c.7 (Hefele, i. 777, 494; ii. 46). Conc. Tolet. i. 
400,c.15. Araus.i. 441, c.11. Arelat. iii. 443-452, c.49. Turon, 461, 
c. 8. Aurel. i. 511, ¢.11. Antisidor. 578, c. 38, 39. Reg. Chrodegangi, 
c. 20. Conc. Hohenaltheim, 916, c. 9 seq. (Hefele, ii. pp. 67, 276, 284, 
568, 645; iii. p. 42; iv. pp. 20, 557). Cf. Bingham, Orig. et Ant. t. vii. 
1. xvi. c. ii. § 1; Selvaggio, Ant. 1. iv. c. i. § 5; Bossuet, Defensio, 1. i. 
sect. 11, c. xxii. p. 155 seq.; Kober, Kirchenbann, p. 376 seq. 

2 Can. 3, 19, c. xi. q. 3, c. A nobis, 2, de Except. ii. 25; c. 29, 30, de 
Sent. Excom. v. 39, c. 3, h.t. in 6. 

5 Cf. Bossuet, Lc. c. xxii. p. 157, § Pertinet etiam. 

4 Childeb. Constit.n. 2. Baluz. Capitul. t.i. p. 17. 

5 Conc. Vermer. can. 9 (Mansi, xii. p. 578 seq.). Baluz, l.c. pp. 172, 
836. Cf. Hefele, iii. p. 551. 

® Capitul. 1. v. 300; vii. 215. Baluz. t. i. pp. 885, 1071. 

7 Const. a. 825, c. i. (Pertz, 1. iii. p. 248). 

8 Hard. vi. 440. 

® Canciani, Barbar. Leg. Ant. t. iv. pp. 291, 309. 

10 Hefele, v. p. 464. Cf. letter of St. Thom. 4 Becket to Card. Albert, 
1170, Thom. Cant. 1. v. Ep. 22, Bouquet, Recueil, xvi. 419, Ep. 258. 

1. Kober, Kirchenbann, p. 439. The petition of the Catholics of An- 
tioch to the Emperor Aurelian (Eus. H. E. vii. 30) is brought forward as 
proof, also can. Antioch, 341, n. 5 (Hard. i. 434), and African canons 


Excommuniation in the Middle Ages. 303 





(Hard. i. 964, seq. 889). For examples in ninth century, vide Hefele, iv. 
pp. 52, 112. 

2 Joh. Saresb. Ep. 326, pp. 376, 377: ‘ Tandem cum D. Anglorum rex 
doleret illum tamdiu excommunicationi subjacere, regiam adjecit manum, 
eundem compellens, ut exhibitione justitiae se a sententia excommunica- 
tionis, qua tenebatur, faceret absolvi.’ The custom of imprisoning persons 
obstinate under excommunication by command of the king, in order to 
force them to submission, was maintained by the English Councils, and 
their release was forbidden until satisfaction had been made; e.g. Council 
of Lambeth, 1261, can. 3; of London, 1342, c.13 (Hefele, vi. pp. 59, 590). 
For the same end the Council of Gran in Hungary (1114), can. 34, required 
that the names should be notified to the king of those excommunicated 
{Hefele, v. p. 290). 

8 Gaillard, Hist. de Charlemagne, t. ii. p. 124. Fleury, Hist. Eccl. 
4. xiii. disc. 3, n. 18; t. xvii. disc. 5,n.13. Bossuet, 1.c. et 1. iii. c. iv. 

14 Ivo, Decret. 1. xiv. c. 69, Ep. 186, ad Laurent. Opp. ii. p. 78. 

1S Hurter, Innoc. III. vol. iii. p. 114. 

16 Hefele, v. pp. 787, 816 seq. Pertz, Leg. iv. 236. 

1 Huillard-Bréholles, Diplom. i. p. 76 seq. Stolberg = Brischar, 
Kirchengeschichte, vol. lii. (new series, vii.) p. 43. 

18 Senkenberg, Corp. Jur. Germ. t. ii. Jur. Alam. ce. iii. 127. 

19 Council of Taragona, 1233, c. 18; of Paris, 1248, c. 20; of Milan, 
1287, c. 28; of Anfe, 1300, c. 7; of Tréves, 1310, c. 26 (Hefele, v. 918, 
1025; vi. 227, 338 seq. 434). The Council of Cologne, 1266, c. 38, 
ordered the same, but enjoined a previous accusation before the Council 
for contempt of the Church’s power of the keys (Hefele, vi. p. 83 ; Kober, 
lc. p. 438). 

20 Council of Narbonne, 1227, c. 1; of Monteuil near Valence, 1248, 
c. 13; statute of Lewis IX. 1229 (Du Cange, Glossar. v. Excom.). Hefele, 
v. pp. 838, 872, 1029. 

21 E.g. Council of Tréves, 1238, treating of those who remain six weeks 
under anathema (Hefele, v. p. 938 seq.). 

2 Hefele, le. p.1019. Hard. vii. 319, 413, 1509. Kober, p. 434 
seq. 
23 Can. 13 (Hefele, v. p. 750 seq.). 

2% E.g. Council of London, 1278, c. 6 (Hefele, vi. p. 164). 

2 Council of Bordeaux, 1263, c. 2 (Hard. vii. 553; Hefele, vi. p. 72); 
Council of Compiégne, 1304, c. 4 (Hard. l.c. p. 1276; Hefele, p. 355); 
of Pressburg, 1309, c. 7 (Hefele, p. 427) ; Kober, l.c. p. 437 seq. 

*6 Urban II. can. 5, c. xv. q.6. Jaffé, Reg. n. 4291, p. 474. 

27 Innoc. III. 1213, 1. xvi. Ep. 116, p. 913: ‘ Cum excommunicatorum 
communio sit aliis interdicta, ipsi officia publica exercere non debént.’ Cf. 
ib. Ep. 94, p. 894. 

§ 5. 


This strict discipline was on the one hand mitigated, on the 
other hand rendered more severe. Gregory VII. in his Lenten 
Council at Rome (1078) modified the prohibition of intercourse 


304 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





with excommunicated persons, so that their wives, families, and ser- 
vants, indeed all whose presence would not strengthen their evil 
dispositions, were permitted to be with them. ‘Travellers who 
came across excommunicated persons might accept a gift or buy 
from them, and all were permitted to give them enough to sup- 
port life. This decree was inserted in the book of canon law,? 
was only slightly modified by Urban II.,° and was recognised by 
Innocent III. The Council of Piacenza (1095) recognised as 
within the pale of the Church, and admitted to the reception of 
the Holy Eucharist, those who came only into personal contact 
with the excommunicated, but took no part in their worship 
(that of the Henrician party). The Council of Tours (1236) 
merely inflicted fines on those Christians who held avoidable 
intercourse with persons under anathema.® The thirteenth 
General Council (1245) maintained only the penalties against. 
those who had taken part in the offence, and forbade the inflic- 
tion of the greater excommunication except after canonical warn- 
ing upon those who held intercourse with persons under anathema 
by word, or in any other way for which the threatened penalty 
was the lesser excommunication ; still if this intercourse tended 
yet further to harden the guilty man, it might be punished in 
the same manner as complicity in crime if canonical warning 
were given beforehand. This warning, which was also insisted 
upon by succeeding Popes, was, however, declared by Gregory X. 
in the fourteenth General Council (1274), c. 29, to be canonical 
only when the persons concerned are mentioned expressly by 
name ;’ this must be done three times, or once in a peremptory 
manner. It was afterwards declared by Martin V. that those 
only who were excommunicated publicly and by name were to 
be avoided (excommunicati vitandi).® 7 


1 Hard. vi. 1578. Migne, PP. Lat. cxlviii. p.798. Hefele, v. p. 108. 

2 Grat. can. 103, ¢. xi. q. 3. 

5 Urban. Ep. ad. Genebald. (Hard. vi. p. 1651 seq.). 

4 Innoc. III. 1. i. Ep. 381, p. 361, ed. Migne: ‘Nullus omnino nomi- 
natim excommunicato scienter communicare tenetur, nisi quaedam per- 
sonae, quae per illud Gregorii P. capitulum quoniam multos specialiter 
excusantur.’ 

5 Hefele, v. pp. 194, 931. 


Excommunuation in the Middle Ages. 305 





6 Hefele, v. p. 991 seq. This decree is c. iii. de Sent. Excom. v. 11 
in 6. 

’ C. 9, de Sent. Excom. v. 11 in 6 (Hefele, vi. p. 137). 

® Const. Ad evitanda scandala (Hard. Conc. viii. 892). Cf. Suarez, de 
Censur. disp. 9, § 2, n. 5; Pignatelli, Cosult. Canon. t. i. cons. 143, n. 4, 
p. 187. 


§ 6. 

On the other hand there was increased severity in the case of 
complete obstinacy on the part of the excommunicated (insordes- 
centia). The sentence of excommunication was most solemnly 
renewed with ceremonies and words expressive of abhorrence and 
execration; for example, the burning tapers borne by the clergy 
were cast to the ground.! The expression ‘ anathema’ was often, 
especially after the ninth century, used for this renewal of the 
sentence.2, The consequences which, by spiritual and civil 
law, fell upon the incorrigibly obstinate were usually then 
pointed out as having actually come into force ; such as the in- 
capacity for public offices and loss of those already held, the 
cessation of all duty of obedience on the part of the subjects of 
the guilty person.* Thus Honorius III. declared in one of the 
decretals inserted in the book of canon law, that a count who 
remained in a state of excommunication over two years, despising 
the Church’s power of the keys, and who, after a second warn- 
ing, still refused amendment, forfeited his right to the obedience 
of his subjects, who were freed from their oath of allegiance to 
him as long as he remained excommunicated.4 This was com- 
pletely in accord with the decision of Innocent III., who had 
declared that those persons whom Gregory VII. had excepted 
from the usual rule not only had the right, but were moreover 
bound in duty, to render obedience to the excommunicated, and 
also to hold intercourse with them, as far as the excommunica- 
tion alone was concerned.° 


1 Gratian, c. 106, c. xi. q. 3. Regino, de Eccl. Discip. 1. ii. ¢. 409. 
Thus in 1031 the extinguishing of the tapers took place at the Council of 
Limoges (Hefele, iv. p. 661). 

2 Council of Paris, 846, c. 56; of Savonniéres, 859, c. 9; of Troyes, 
878, c. 1 (Hefele, iv. pp. 111, 198, 512) ; Pope Nicholas I. Ep. 7, et in Conc. 
Rom. 863 (cf. can. 2, c. iv. q. 1); Johan. VIII. c. 12, ¢. iii. g. 4; and else- 


VOL. I. x 


306 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





where. Thus Celestine III. c. 10, Cum non ab homine, ii. 1, de Jud. : 
‘Qui si depositus incorrigibilis fuerit, excommunicari debet, deinde con- 
tumacia crescente anathematis mucrone feriri.’ The Pontificale Romanum 
also makes this distinction (Phillips, Lehrbuch der Kirchenrechte, § 189, 
p. 544, note. 

5 Kober, Kirchenbann, p. 403. 

4 C. 13, Gravem. v. 37, de Poenis. 

5 C. 31, Inter alia, tit. de Sent. Excom. v. 39, explanation of the words 
of the same Pope, quoted § 5 supra. Those persons were understood 
who, ante prolationem sententiae excommunicationis, were bound to obey 
the excommunicated, neque postmodum ad contrarium tenentur. Still, 
travellers, pilgrims, merchants, were, except in case of necessity, to re- 
frain from intercourse with those under anathema. It was ‘in crimini- 
bus’ alone that no one was to hold intercourse with them. 


§ 7. 

But kings and princes were no more exempt from excommu- 
nication than the rest of the faithful. The duty of passing 
sentence upon them fell to Popes and Councils, and was a purely 
ecclesiastical act, completely within the sphere of the Church. 
The Gallican Dupin himself says : ‘It seems to me that no doubt 
can be raised but that kings who are sinners or heretics may in 
this sense be pronounced unworthy of communion with the 
Church. For though they are monarchs and princes of the civil 
commonwealth, still they are merely simple members of the 
religious commonwealth, and must obey its laws, or be cast out 
from it; for no one is lord, no one is monarch over the Church, 
and no one is free from her laws. Therefore without doubt the 
prince who offends against the laws of Christ and of the Church 
may be considered and pronounced unworthy of the Church.’? As 
Christians, they are sons of the Church, not her rulers ; subject 
to her laws, not raised above them. Protestants have also made 
use of this right, as, for example, the French Calvinists against 
Henry IV. ;* and it was fully defended by Samuel Basnage.°® 


1 The belief of the ancient Christians on this point is shown by Kober, 
p. 108 seq. Bossuet admits the proposition, P. i. 1. i. sect. 2, c. xxi. pp. 
154, 155. 

2 Dupin, de Ant. Eccl. Disciplina, dissert. 6, ¢. ii. 

3 Ambros. serm. de Basilicis. Joh. VIII. P. in ec. xi. dist. 96. 

4 J. H. Boehmer, Jus Eccles. 1. v. tit. 39, n. 40. 

> Sam. Basnage, Annal. Politico-Eccles. ii. diss. 3, § 10. 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 307 





§ 8. 


On the other hand, deposition and the release of subjects 
from their oath of allegiance were distinct acts, which did not 
immediately and of themselves follow upon every sentence of 
excommunication, but had to be separately declared.1 By the 
public law of Christian States, excommunication brought with 
it temporal consequences, differing only according to the length 
of obstinate resistance to the sentence, and it was considered 
monstrous that a Christian people should be ruled by a prince 
who was cut off, and remained cut off, from the Church ; there- 
fore to the sentence of excommunication might be added a 
declaration that those consequences were come into force which 
followed also by the constitution of the State.2, In pronouncing 
a sentence of deposition, which was only done when all other 
means were exhausted, the Popes appealed not only to divine, 
but also to human law ;° and this was done also by the most 
eminent writers on the effects of excommunication.* Since the 
Pope and the Council were the natural judges in all questions 
touching religion, it also belonged to them to point out to the 
people those princes who had fallen into heresy, or under the 
greater excommunication of the Church. This they could not 
do without observing and declaring that by the constitution and 
custom of their countries these princes had forfeited their right 
of governing, either for a time, or for ever, according to the state 
of the case. It was to the interest of the sovereign, and of the 
whole community, that such a declaration should not be left to 
be made by the people, or by the national assembly, which would 
have favoured every attempt at revolution,® or even by the 
bishops of the country in question alone, who were also subjects 
of the king, but should be reserved to the Pope and General 
Council. Even when it was supposed that the subjects ofa 
prince excommunicated for apostasy from the Faith were at 
once and necessarily set free from his rule and from their oath 
of allegiance,® still a judgment to that effect was needed from the 
Pope, a sententia declatoria criminis, as in other cases also 
where the excommunication at once took effect by virtue of the 


308 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





law (ipso jure) ; usually the loss of office was only added as an 
increase of punishment, and did not in fact follow upon every 
sentence of excommunication.’ Besides this, the acts of juris- 
diction of an excommunicated and deposed prince were declared 
null and void, as, for example, Innocent IIT. (1212) declared in 
relation to the acts of the deposed Otho IV. of Germany? 
Such princes were no longer looked upon as lawful rulers, but 
as tyrants.2 Even though strictly speaking deposition of the 
prince could only be effected by the combined action of the 
spiritual and civil law, still the same effect was at once produced 
by an entire release of the subjects from the oath of allegiance, 
in releasing from which the Church was completely within her 
own sphere.!° 


1 Suarez, de Cens. disp. 15, sect. 6, n. 3: ‘Ut excommunicatus prin- 
ceps dominio et omni jure in subditos privetur, necesse est, ut speciali 
poena et sententia declaretur aut imponatur’ (Gosselin, ii. p. 339). 

2 Cf. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, iii. § 125, p. 158; § 126, p. 190. For the 
Papal right of deposition the following are quoted: Bonayent. de Eccles. 
Hier. P. ii. c. i. (ed. Ven. v. p. 215); Raymund. de Pennaf. 1. i. tit. de 
Haeret. § 7; Aug. Triumph. q. 46 ; Antonin. Sum. P. iii. tit. 22, c. iii. § 7; 
Petr. Palud. de causa immed. Eccl. pot. Ant. Aug. jur. Pont. vet. epit. 
tit. 16, ap. Roccaberti, iv. 206. Several German law-books and others, 
apud Friedburg, de Finibus, &c. p. 29, n. 5. 

3 Gregor. VII. Ep. ad princ. Germ. ap. Paul. Bernr. c. Ixxviii.: ‘Per quos 

...eum secreto monuimus, ut poenitentiam ageret de sceleribus suis, 
quae quidem horrenda dictu sunt ....propter quae eum excommunicari 
non solum usque ad dignam satisfactionem, sed ab omni honore regni 
absque spe recuperationis debere destitui divinarum et humanarum legum 
testatur auctoritas.’ 

* Ivo Carnot. Ep. 186, Opp. ii. p. 78; Gosselin, ii. p. 104, n.2. Cf. 
Suarez, Defens. Fidei, 1. vi. c. iv: ‘ Licet respublica seu regnum hominum 
ex sola rei natura spectatum, prout fuit inter gentiles et nunc est inter 
ethnicos, habeat potestatem se defendendi a tyranno rege et illum depo- 
nendi in eum finem si necessarium fuerit, nihilominus regna Christiana 
quoad hoc habent aliquam dependentiam et subordinationem ad Pontificem 
summum, quia potest Pontifex alicui regno praecipere, ut se inconsulto 
contra regem suum non insurgat vel illum non deponat, nisi prius causa 
et ratione ab ipso cognita, propter moralia pericula et animarum dispen- 
dia, quae in his tumultibus popularibus moraliter interveniunt, et ad vi- 
tandas seditiones et injustas rebelliones.’ 

5 Bianchi, t. iii. 1. i. c. i. § 6, n. 9, pp. 52, 53. 

6 §. Thom. Sum. 2, 2, q. 12, a. 2, in corp. 

7 Kober, l.c. pp. 117, 118. 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. . 3°9 





8 Innoc. III. 1. xv. Ep. 31, p. 566: ‘ Sicut ea, quae a Catholicis et de- 
votis principibus rationabiliter ordinantur, firma debent et illibata servari, 
sic ea, quae a perfidis tyrannis improbe statuuntur, maxime tempore, quo 
excommunicationis vinculo tenentur astricti, carere debent robore firmitatis, 
cum tales legitime nequeant jurisdictionis officium exercere ab unitate fide- 
lium separati. Cum igitur Otto, jam non nominandus imperator, sed im- 
pius persecutor, cum suis fautoribus anathematis vinculo sit innodatus et 
a debito fidelitatis ipsius absoluti sint universi, nos omnia, quae idem ex- 
communicatus vel aliquis ejus officialis contra clericos vel ecclesias statuit 
aut statuerit, sive contra principes aut eorum fautores, qui memorato 
tyranno suum subduxerint obsequium, ut libertatem et justitiam tam He- 
clesiae quam Imperii tueantur, denunciamus irrita et inania esse eaque 
de communi fratrum nostrorum consilio auctoritate apostolica omnino 
cassamus.’ Cf. ib. Ep. 36, p. 569; Ep. 84, 85, p. 603. 

® Thus St. Bernard designated Roger of Sicily, after the excommuni- 
cation and decrees of Innocent II., Ep. 127, ad Guitm. p. 138 seq.; Ep. 
130, ad Pisan. p. 140 seq. Cf. Ep. 136, 139; Ep. 140, ad Loth. p. 146. 
Cf. Bianchi, t. ii. 1. v. § 12, n. 1, p. 319. But when Roger had made his 
peace with the Pope, and been recognised by him, St. Bernard wrote to 
him most respectfully (Ep. 207-209, ad Roger. Reg. Sicil.). 

‘© Thence it happened that for brevity many ascribed to the Church 
the right of deposing. Thus Gerhoch von Reigersberg says, in Psalm. xxix. 
seq. 630: ‘ Ordo clericalis, cujus nimirum est officium, non solum plebejos, 
sed etiam reges increpare atque regibus aliis descendentibus alios ordinare.’ 
Cf. Neander, Kirchengeschichte, ii. p. 390, b. iii. a. 


§ 9. 

A doubt has been raised, not indeed in the Middle Ages, but 
of late, as to the power of the Church to release from oaths, 
whether of allegiance or of any other nature. It will be well to 
set forth here the universal teaching of canonists and moral theo- 
logians. The question now before us is clearly not of the oath 
taken in a court of justice, but of the extra-judicial oath; not 
of the oath of assertion (jusjurandum assertorium), but of the 
oath of promise (jusjurandum promissorium). All are agreed 
that an oath is not binding if it fail in the requisite justice of 
its object, for an oath, by which God is called to witness, is a 
solemn religious act, and cannot bind to evil. It is not lawful 
to take an oath against religion, good morals, or the rights of a 
third person, or dangerous to salvation and the public welfare ;? 
oaths, for example, to assassinate or put to death unjustly, such 
as Herod’s oath,* are forbidden, and are not binding. Every 


310 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





binding oath must have as its accompaniment truth, judgment (7.e. 
deliberation), and justice (veritatem in mente, judicium in jurante, 
justitiam in objecto).* Although an oath to which especially 
the last of the three requisites is wanting does not bind, still 
the Church insists so strongly on the binding nature of an oath 
in itself, and therefore on the presumption of its power of bind- 
ing in any individual case, that where the slightest doubt exists 
as to what is included in the oath she requires application to be 
made to her for release from the obligation, even though it be 
only a seeming obligation.> Such cases could not be left to the 
subjective judgment of private persons ; and since, from the cus- 
tom of rendering a contract more binding by the addition of an 
oath, many cases of the kind came under the judgment of the 
Church, it was her duty to lay down exact laws for such ques- 
tions as they arose ; but in so doing, she did not call in question 
the competence of the civil judges to receive complaints in the 
matter of contracts.® 

The course adopted by the Church necessarily differed much, 
according to the oaths brought before her. In many cases the in- 
terpretation of the oath sufficed. This was the course of Innocent 
IIL. as to the oath of the King of Aragon to maintain his father’s 
base coinage ; and also as to the promise of the Archbishop of 
Naples to observe the ordinary legal procedure everywhere, even 
when the notoriety of the case made it unnecessary.’ In other 
cases, again, he who had made the oath was compelled to carry 
it out, and he to whom it was made was compelled to make 
restitution ;* sometimes for a sufficient cause absolution or relaxa- 
tion was given, often with the imposition of a penance.® Inno- 
cent III. commissioned the Archbishop of Mainz to declare null 
and void the oath of the canons of Wiirzburg, by which they 
had sworn to the Bishop of Hildesheim, who held their see, to 
pay his family after his death two thousand marks, and not to 
obey his successor until the money had been paid.'? The same 
Pope declared the Duke of Austria free from his promise of 
marriage, by reason of the nonfulfilment of conditions on the 
other side.1!_ Even an oath made under pressure needed relaxa- 
tion or absolution from the Church.!? The declaration that an 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 311 





oath was null was called absolution, precisely as the declaration 
of innocence of an accused person was also called absolution. 


' C. 22, Inter cetera, § 1. Porro, c. xxii. q. 4. Cf. the other canons, 
especially c. 5, 18. 

2 Schmalzgrueber, in 1. ii. Decret. tit. 24, § 6, n.71-74. Reiffenstuel, 
in h. tit. § 3, n. 73 seq. 

3 Joh. Saresb. Polyer. 1. iii. c. xi. p. 499: ‘Rex incredulus salubrius 
incautum et perfidum solvisset juramentum, quam in exstinguenda lucerna 
verbi, auferendo praeambulum gratiae, veritatis occidendo praeconem men- 
sam pollueret convivium incestaret, regiam pessumdaret majestatem, dum 
incestui cuncta serviunt et obtemperant saltatrici. Ethica quidem regula 
est, quia non omnia sunt semper promissa solvenda, si forte aut accepturo 
damnosa aut perniciosa sint promittenti . . . . ipsoque jure cautum est, ut 
nulla promissio, quae turpem aut tristem habeat exitum, impleatur.’ 

* Hieron. incan. 2,c. xxii. q.4. Also Godfrey of Vendéme, Tract. de 
Ord. Episc. (Migne, clvii. p. 282). 

5 Phillips, Lehrb. der Kirchenrechte, § 316, p. 1176. 

6 Phillips, l.c. § 177, n. 3, p. 495 seq. 

7 C. Quanto, 18, de Jurejur. ii. 24 (Innoc. ITI. 1. ii. Ep. 28, p. 558) ; ¢. 
Ad nostram, 21, ibid. (1. i. Ep. 415, p. 392 seq.). 

8 Alex. III. c. 7, Ad nostram, h.t. in relation to a pledge taken to obtain 
a loan. 

° C. Cum quidam, § Illi vero; c. Quanto, l.c. 

10 Tnnoce. 1. ii. Ep. 216, p.775. To such oaths the words of the same 

- Pope apply, c. Sicut nostris, 27, h.t.: ‘ Non juramenta, sed perjuria potius 
sunt dicenda, quae contra utilitatem ecclesiasticam attentantur.’ What is 
here meant by ‘ utilitas ecclesiastica’ the context shows; it is a question of 
injury to episcopal rights by the canons. 

1 Tb. 1. vi. Ep. 201, p. 225. 

#2 C.2, Pervenit (Gregor. VII.) ; c. Si vero, 8 (Alex. IIT.) ; c. 15, Verum 
(Celestin. III.) ; ¢.21, Ad nostram (Innoc. III.). 

13 Pallavicin. Hist. Conc. Trid. 1. xi. c. ii. n. 10. 


§ 10. 


The question, who had power to absolve from an oath, was 
answered as follows.1 Passing over the case of an oath of pro- 
mise to God, which is a vow, and in the matter of dispensation 
must be dealt with accordingly,” we come to the case of a pro- 
mise to a fellow-man; here we must distinguish whether or not 
the oath, on the side of him to whom it was made—the reci- 
pient—contains anything immoral. Ifit does, it may be relaxed 
by the bishop, for such an oath can give no right to him to whom 
it was made, and can make no contract binding ; if it does not, 


212 Principles of the Middle Ages, 





it can be released, against the will of the recipient, by the Pope 
alone, and by him only for a weighty cause and for the general 
good ; for in this case there is question of the well-earned right 
of another, of which he can be deprived only by the highest 
spiritual power, and on good grounds. Often was application 
made to the Pope even when the bishop would have had power 
to act. To the question, whether the civil judge or the sovereign 
had power to release from an oath made to a man, if not by ab- 
solving from it, at least by declaring it null and void,—if not 
directly, at least indirectly,—the answer given was as follows :4 
(1) It is not beyond the power of the civil judge indirectly to- 
remove the obligation of an oath made by a layman subject to 
him, if the matter promised by oath belongs to his jurisdic- 
tion, and if the public good demands it; (2) the civil magis- 
trates, at least the sovereign, can, if the public good demands it, 
declare certain kinds of contract so utterly void, that the addi- 
tion of no oath can make them valid, and (3) even that such oath 
shall carry with it no obligation, either of justice, or of religious 
duty ; (4) he may for the common good forbid the fulfilment 
of the obligation promised by oath, in which case the obligation. 
ceases; (5) the emperor may lay a prince or a state of the 
empire under the imperial ban, and, as a consequence, the sub- 
jects are freed from their oath of allegiance. Moreover, a hus- 
band, for example, may declare the oath of his wife to be null, 
and still more, he in whose favour it was made may release her 
from it.? Princes may declare the oaths of their subjects null, 
since every oath is taken on the supposition that it does not 
prejudice the authority of the magistrates (salva superiorum auc- 
toritate).© The following were accepted as legal grounds for 
release from promissory oaths :’ (1) Immorality in the promise ; 
(2) extortion of the oath by force or cunning; (3) a higher or 
a greater good hindered by its fulfilment ; (4) want of judgment 
and deliberation in taking the oath; (5) doubt as to whether 
the oath was really taken ; (6) removal of scandal to others ; and 
also (7) of danger and occasion of sin. But never might the. 
release from an oath, granted for the benefit of a sinner, serve as. 
an authorisation for further sins in others.® 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 313 





1 Smalzgrueber, l.c. n. 96, 97. 

2 As to the faculties given to the appointed confessors of princes for 
the release of oaths made by them, there is only question (1) of vota in- 
deliberata, and (2) of a release which may be given in general by the 
universal principles of law, for these are always presupposed. On the 
subject of the authority given by Clement VI. to the French King John, 
Bishop Fessler has given satisfactory information (Die Wahre und die 
Falsche Unfehlbarkeit, pp. 64, 65). That which is to be done ‘secundum 
Deum’ cannot be carried out contrary to God’s commands. 

3 Thus Suarez, 1]. ii. de Juram. c. xli. n. 2; Sanchez, 1. iii.; Moral. ¢- 
xxi. n.2; Laymann, inc. viii. h.t.n. 2; and elsewhere. St. Thom. Sum. 
2, 2, q. 89, a. 9,ad3: ‘Et in tali juramento non videtur habere locum dis- 
pensatio vel commutatio, nisi aliquid melius occurrat ad communem utili- 
tatem faciendum, quod mazxime videtur pertinere ad postestatem Papae, 
qui habet curam universalis Ecclesiae.’ From the word ‘ maxime’ Schmalz- 
grueber concludes, l.c.: ‘ Ergo aliquando etiam ab Episcopo id fieri potest 
juxta rei et personarum qualitatem.’ 

4 Schmalzgrueber, l.c. n. 100-104. 

5 Germoin, |. ii. Animadvers. c. viii. Marca, de Jurisdict. P. iv. cent.1, 
cas. 72, n. 23. Suarez, de Relig. t. ii. tract. 4, 1. ii. c. xxxix.n. 5. P. 
Surdus, Consil. 364, n. 25. Bianchi, t. i. 1.i. § 17, n. 3, p. 141. 

6 Innoe. III. c. 19, Venientes, h.t.: ‘ In quo (juramento) debet intelligi 
jus superioris exceptum.’ Cf. Greg. M.in Can.i.d.85. Suarez, de Relig. 
l.c. c. xxxviii. Sanchez, de Praecept. Decal. 1. iii. c.ii. n. 19. Gonzales, 
in 1. ii. Decret. c. i. Ex administrationis, h.t. n. 8, fin. Bianchi, l.c. 

7 Schmalzgrueber, l.c. n. 105. 

8 Alex. II. 1061 (Mansi, xix. 980; Jaffé, n. 3374, p. 390): ‘ Possumus 
in perjurio aliquo crimine lapsis misericordiae manum porrigere, sed non. 
debemus ad futurae perditionis (al.: prohibitionis) exemplum licentiam 
dare.’ 


Gai 


The Eastern Church affords a famous example of release from 
a promissorial oath. When the Emperor Mauricius (582-602) 
sent the General Philippikus to his troops they would not accept. 
him ; the venerable Patriarch Gregory of Antioch, in spite of 
illness, addressed to them a powerful speech to recall them to 
obedience.1 The rebels, deep as was the impression made by 
this speech, appealed to their solemn oath, which bound them to 
be firm in their resolve. To this Gregory replied that he, as. 
bishop, had power to bind and to loose in heaven and on earth ; 
and thus he silenced all scruples.? In Spain the fifteenth Council 
of Toledo (688) had to pass judgment, at the request of the King 
Egiza, upon three separate oaths made by him.3 There are also 


314 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





many such examples among the Popes before Alexander III. 
Nicholas I. released the Archbishop of Tréves, and others of the 
clergy, from oaths taken in prison ;*+ Leo IX. released Edward 
the Confessor from his promised journey to Rome, inconsideration 
of a menacing rebellion ;> Gregory VII. (1080) set free Bishop 
Henry of Liége from an oath, extorted from him by Count Ar- 
nulf, that he would not demand back the property taken from 
him ;§ he likewise declared to Count Robert of Flanders that 
his oath to the French King Philip had no binding power :7 the 
count had sworn to support the intruder Lambert, who had been 
guilty of simony. Paschal IT. (1099-1115) declared the feudal 
oath taken reciprocally by the clergy of the church of Chartres 
to be null, and forbade it in future.S Calixtus II. (March 4, 
1120) pronounced not binding the oath of allegiance extorted 
from the nobles of the kingdom by the Spanish Queen Urraca, 
widow of Count Raymund: the queen desired to reign instead 
of her son, appointed by King Idelphons to be his heir; the 
Pope moreover added that the oath previously taken to her son 
retained its binding power.? Hadrian IV. absolved the French 
Chancellor Hugo from the vow he had made, that he would 
offer to resign his office upon attaining the dignity of arch- 
deacon, &c.1° 

1 Kvagr. H. E. 1. vi. c. vi. 12. 

? Thid. c. xiii. (Migne, PP. gr. 1. xxxvi. p. 2864). 

3 Hefele, Cone. iii. p. 295 seq. 

* C.2, c. xv. q.6 (Jaffé, Reg. n. 2027, p. 238). 

5 Mansi, xix.1050. J. n. 3236, p. 374. 

6 Jaffé, n. 3880, 3881, p. 433 seq. 

7 Jaffé, n. 3953, p. 440. Mansi, xx. 370. He remarks: ‘ Perniciosius 
esse, illum’ per quem juretur, quam cui juretur, et Deum quam hominem 
offendere.’ 

§ Ivo Carn. Opp. ii. 233. J. n. 4748, p. 508. 


® Jaffé, n. 4995, p. 534. 
10 Mansi, xxi. 804, 806. Jaffé, n. 7093, 7094, p. 675. 


§ 12. 
When subjects were released from their oath of allegiance to 


excommunicated princes, it was on the understanding that these 
princes had themselves been guilty of breaking faith with God ; 


Excommunication tn the Middle Ages. 315 





the oath of obedience to them was always taken on the condi- 
tion, expressed or understood, that they should fulfil the obliga- 
tions they had undertaken to the Church and to their people. If 
they failed in this, the salvation of their subjects was endangered, 
for they were easily implicated in the crimes of their sovereign, 
indeed as a rule they were required by him to do things incom- 
patible with their own higher duties. Although an oath taken 
to a prince who had broken his own faith was allowed to be in 
itself ipso facto no longer binding,? yet for greater security, and 
that the fact might be fully confirmed, a special declaration on 
the part of the Pope was not to be looked upon as superfluous, 
or to be dispensed with, nay more, it was required by the uni- 
versal rules given above. When the faithful were in immediate 
danger of falling away from the Faith, through the apostasy of 
a ruler, the Church had power to forbid obedience to be paid to 
him, and to release them from their oath of allegiance ; she did 
not directly deprive him of his power, but made use of her own 
spiritual power in such a way as to remove the danger, and to 
secure the spiritual welfare of the sovereign and his subjects. 
Other weapons and direct means were employed against simply 
immoral kings, and in this case extreme measures were not to 
be resorted to as long as their subjects were in no danger.® 


1 The decree of Innocent III. against Markwald, 1. i. Ep. 38, p. 32, 
says: ‘Omnes, qui eidem fidelitate sunt vel sacramento astricti, apostolica 
auctoritate a sacramento absolvimus, et ne ipsi fidelitatem observent, modis 
omnibus prohibemus, cum fidelitatem quem aliqui Christiano principi jura- 
verunt Deo ejusque sanctis adversanti et eorum praecepta calcanti nulla 
mandentur auctoritate servare.’ ; 

* Augustin. Triumph. Sum. q. 40, a. 4: ‘Utrum Papa possit Im- 
peratoris subditos a juramento fidelitatis absolvere. ... Dicendum, quod, 
sicut scribitur X de reg. jur. (75 in 6): frustra sibi fidem quis postulat 
abalio (eo) servari, qui (cui) fidem praestitam a se servare recusat. Pla- 
num est autem, quod in juramento fidelitatis, quod Imperator Ecclesiae 
praestat, continetur, quod ipse jurare faciet omnes illos, quibus regnum 
Italiae seu alia ad Keclesiam pertinentia committit, ut ipsi Ecclesiae 
adjutores existant. Si ergo fidelitatem qaam jurat, recusat observare, 
ipso facto ejus subditi sunt a juramento fidelitatis ejus absoluti.’ 

3 Bianchi, t. i. 1. iii. § 1, n. 8-9, pp. 447-449. 


316 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





§ 13. 


The state of things at the present day is in many respects 
different. The oath, which is inconceivable apart from religion, 
and which is peculiarly a religious matter,! came to be more and 
more profaned ; it was made far too common ;? little or no im- 
portance was attached in private law to the promissory oath, and 
before long the assertorial oath used as testimony in a court of 
justice came to be the only one held in esteem.* ‘The duty of 
allegiance,’ says Walter,* ‘may be strengthened by an oath, and 
this in itself has the same value as an oath affirming a fact. 
The nonfulfilment of an oath lawfully sworn should be punished 
precisely in the same way as false evidence given on oath, and 
this falls strictly within the sphere of conscience, and therefore 
of canon law. The task of exactly weighing all the points of 
conscience in such cases was so far beyond the civil courts that 
they were unable to enter into them, and were forced to leave 
the spiritual courts to decide as to the binding power of promis- 
sorial oaths, while they themselves merely carried out the sen- 
tence. This is no longer tolerated, and therefore in modern 
times the promissory oath has no civil effects, and is left com- 
pletely to the sphere of conscience. One undeniable advantage 
is thus gained: the oath is now in less danger of being dragged 
into mere business transactions. But there isa certain inconsist- 
ency in the fact that a promissory oath taken in matters concern- 
ing private law is ignored by the State, while itis maintained 
in public law (/.e. the oath of allegiance), though the State has 
no tribunal for matters of conscience to decide the often delicate 
questions which come before it. As a last resort the power of 
self-interpretation steps in, and this it is which has brought 
political oaths so much into disrepute.’ 


1 Marx, Der Hid und die Hidespraxis, Regensb. 1855, p. 80 seq. 93 
seq. 
2 In early times the Church was forced to complain of the abuse of the 
oath by civil magistrates. Basil, Ep. 85 (Migne, PP. gr. t. xxxii. p, 465). 

2 Cf. Walter, Kirchenrechte, § 353 seq. 620 seq. 

4 Walter, Naturrecht und Politik, § 106, p. 103 seq. 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 317 





§ 14. 


The assertion that the Popes busied themselves principally 
in judging and deposing sovereigns, and that no kingdom was 
secure from their violence, is utterly without foundation. On 
the contrary, all princes might rule quietly and free from moles- 
tation so long as their government was supported by public 
opinion and a good conscience. Instances of deposition are by 
no means numerous, and relate in most cases to elective mon- 
archies; but the Papal condemnations fell exclusively upon 
princes actually guilty of great crimes, and were in accordance 
with the laws then in force ;! for this reason their justice was 
acknowledged and respected by the majority of men in that day, 
in so far as they were really impartial. Why is complaint made 
against the Popes alone, and not also against the bishops, who 
agreed with them, and against the Councils, which adopted their 
deeds and their words, and acted upon the same principles of 
public law? This is evident not only in the Roman Councils 
(1076 and 1080) under Gregory VII., not only in the Council 
of Rheims (1119), which released from their obedience all the 
subjects of Henry V.,? but comes out most clearly also in the 
Ecumenical Councils of the Middle Ages. 


1 De Maistre, Du Pape, I. ii. c. ii. v. xi. pp. 218, 235, 353 ; Gosselin, 
ii. p. 372 seq. The Protestant Senkenberg (Methodus Jurisprudent. 
addit.iv. de Libert. Eccl. Germ. § 8): ‘Jure affirmare poterit, ne exemplum 
quidem esse in omni rerum memoria, ubi Pontifex processerit adversus 
eos, qui juribus suis intenti ultra limites vagari in animum non induxerunt 
suum. ’” 

2 Labbé, xii. 1306. Mansi, xxi. 235-255. Hefele, v. p. 319. 


§ 15. 


The eleventh Ecumenical Council (1179) released all those 
bound by compact to heretical princes from the duty of alle- 
giance, from the oath of fealty, and from all obedience, so long 
as their rulers persisted in their obstinacy. The twelfth (1215) 
directed that temporal sovereigns who neglected to cleanse their 
kingdoms of heresy should be excommunicated by the metro- 


318 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





politan and the other bishops ; in case they made no satisfaction 
within the space of one year the Pope was to be informed, in 
order that he might declare the vassals freed from their allegiance, 
and give over the land to Catholic rulers.2,_ Whether or not it is 
assumed that these decrees were issued in concert with Christian 
princes, and on the understanding oftheir assistance,’ it is at least: 
clear that they took the same view of public law as the Popes, and 
did not consider that the Church was exceeding her powers. The 
opinion, that these decrees were only passed through the agreement 
of sovereigns, is grounded upon (1) the presence of princes and 
civil ambassadors; (2) the introduction to the decree of the 
eleventh Council, in which are quoted the words of Leo I. on 
the support given to the discipline of the Church by the laws 
of Catholic princes ; (3) the assent given by clergy and people 
to these resolutions, as recorded by chroniclers ;> (4) the cha- 
racter of these Councils, which resemble great parliaments of 
the whole of Christendom; (5) the conduct of the Popes, who 
urged princes—e.g. Frederick II.—to support similar decrees by 
civil sanctions (penal law) ; (6) the fact that the origin of the 
decrees in question appears to be the ancient imperial laws 
against the Manicheans and other sects.° The learned men who 
support this opinion acknowledge that it is impossible to limit 
the expressions as to loss of lands to fiefs of the Church,’ but 
they hold that the highest temporal rulers, kings, were exempted 
from these rules, and that they are to be understood only of the 
lesser vassals. There have been, however, many objections urged 
against this last opinion, with appeal to the words of the decrees. 
It has been urged:—that this was a question of absolution from an 
oath, which was necessarily considered asan act of spiritual jurisdic- 
tion,!° while all a temporal prince could do was to annul an oath in 
those matters in which it was not taken to God ;" that the tem- 
poral sovereign was indeed entitled to depose a vassal on politi- 
cal grounds, without releasing him from his oath, which then 
became null, but was not entitled to absolve him from his oath on 
religious grounds (ex causa religionis), of which the Church was 
alone the judge; that it cannot be said that the Church obtained 
her right of absolving from an oath on religious grounds from 


E-xcommunication in the Middle Ages. 319 





the consent of temporal princes, which must be maintained if 
the contested interpretation be accepted ; that it is to draw a false 
conclusion from the proposition, ‘the princes have given their 
assent,’ to say, ‘ therefore the decree of the Council has its bind- 
ing power from the princes; that the dogmatic decrees of the 
four Lateran Councils would also have to be ascribed to sove- 
reigns, for they were issued in precisely the same way; and 
lastly, that either the sovereigns of that day must be con- 
sidered completely ignorant and uncultured, or it must be al- 
lowed that they acknowledged in the Church the power of 
releasing from oaths.}? 


1 Conc. Lateran. iii. c. 27 (Hard. vi. 1684): ‘ Relaxatos autem se 
noverint a debito fidelitatis et hominii et totius obsequii, donec in tanta 
iniquitate permanserint, quicunque illis aliquo pacto tenentur annexi.’ 

2 Conc. Later. iv. c. 3 (Hard. vii. p. 18 seq.): ‘Moneantur autem et 
inducantur, et si necesse fuerit, per censuram ecclesiasticam compellantur 
saeculares potestates, quibuscunque fungantur offciis, ut sicut reputari 
cupiunt et habere fideles, ita pro defensione fidei praestent publice jura- 
mentum, quod de terris suae jurisdictioni subjectis universos haereticos 
ab Ecclesia denotatos bona fide pro viribus exterminare studebunt, ita 
quod amodo, quandocunque quis fuerit in potestatem sive spiritualem 
sive temporalem assumtus, hoc teneatur capitulum juramento firmare. Si 
vero Dominus temporalis requisitus et monitus ab Ecclesia terram suam 
purgare neglexerit ab hac haeretica foeditate, per metropolitanum et 
ceteros provinciales episcopos excommunicationis vinculo innodetur. Et 
si satisfacere contemserit intra annum, significetur hoc summo Pontijici, 
ut ex tunc ipse vasallos ab ejus fidelitate denunciet absolutos et terram 
exponat Catholicis occupandam, qui eam exterminatis haereticis sine ulla 
contradictione possideant et in fidei puritate conservent.’ 

3 Bossuet, Defens. Decl. Cleri. Gall. 1. iv. c. i. ii. p. 337 seq. Fleury, 
Hist. Eccl. t. xv. 1. Ixxiii. n. 22. Gosselin, ii. pp. 110-114. 

* Leo M. Ep. 15, ad Turrib. c. i. 

5 On the words of Roger of Hoveden (Annal. Angl. 1. ii.): ‘His 
itaque decretis promulgatis et ab universo clero ac populo circumstante 
receptis,’ Bossnet remarks, l.c. p, 339: ‘ Populi autem nomine, ecclesi- 
astico more styloque, laici omnes intelligibantur, ipsique adeo principes 
et eorum legati. Quare si quid in Conciliis adversus haereticos decerne- 
retur, quod ad civilem potestatem pertineret, id, quamquam ad majorem 
religionis reverentiam Concilii nomine editum, tamen a civili potestate 
receptum ac ratum habitum ex ea consensione vim suam obtinebat.’ 

® Natal. Alex. H.E. saec. 13 et 14, diss. 3, a. 3, t. xvi. p. 48 seq. 

7 Bossuet, l.c. c. iv. p. 342: ‘Nos generatim dicta ad omnes (feudos) 
pertinere non refugimus. 

5 Natal. Alex. l.c. n. 3, p. 49 seq. Bossuet, lc. ¢. iii. fin. p. 342. 


320 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





® Important here are the words which follow those quoted above (in 
note 2): ‘Salvo jure domini principalis, dummodo super hoc ipse nullum 
praestet obstaculum nec aliquod impedimentum opponat, eadem nihilominus 
lege servata circa eos, qui non habent dominum principalem.’ These last 
are plainly principes supremi, lords paramount, while the simple liege lord 
is dominus— quihabet dominium. Bossuet’s explanation, l.c., is inadmis- 
sible: ‘ Domini principales dicebantur ii, qui cum inferiores sub se haberent 
dominos, ipsi supremis absolutisque dominis, h.e. regibus, immediate 
suberant neque refugere poterant ea, quae supremorum dominorum, regum 
scil., qui per legatos aderant, consensione decreta essent.’ He holds also 
that kings must have been mentioned ‘ specialiter,’ in case they were in- 
cluded, but ends by saying that it would dothem no injuryif out of hatred of 
heresy they agreed to the decree even as applying to themselves. It must not 
be overlooked that the law makes no other distinction, and includes those 
who have over them no ‘dominus principalis,’ and also that the same 
principle applies to both, and that subjects are equally bound to allegiance, 
whether their immediate superior be subject to another or not. 

10 According to c. 13, Novit, ii. 1, de Judic. 

nN Bianchi, t.i. 1. i. § 17, n. 2,3, pp. 140-144. He remarks that the 1. 
ult. seq. 1. i. ad municp. proves nothing to the point, since the emperors 
released from oaths not as emperors, but as pontifices maximi. Plautus 
in Rudent. act v. scene 3: ‘ Libet jurare, tu meo pontifex perjurio es?’ and 
elsewhere ibid. Cf. Gonzales, c. ii. de Judiciis, ii. 1. 

12 Bianchi, l.c. n. 5, 6, pp. 146-148. 


§ 16. 


The first General Council of Lyons (1245), with its sentence 
against the Emperor Frederick II., is brought forward on this 
point by many theologians,! while others, on the contrary, con- 
tend? that the sentence was approved by the Pope alone, with- 
out the consent of the Council, and was passed sacro praesente 
(not approbante) concilio (in presence of the Council). But it 
must not be taken for granted that the bishops were considered 
merely as spectators and mutes; in the first two meetings their 
consent had been most clearly given, and it was against their will 
that the third meeting was put off twelve days.* While the 
sentence was being passed the Fathers held lighted tapers in 
their hands, which they then extinguished, in token of their 
deep abhorrence,* exactly as had been done in the case of 
Henry V. at the Council of Rheims (October 30, 1119).° Not 
one single bishop spoke against the sentence, not one appealed 
against it, Neither can it be maintained that the bishops took 


Excommunication in the Middle A ges. 321 





part in the excommunication only, and not in the deposition. 
The sentence of excommunication was no longer in question, 
having been passed upon Frederick in 1239. The accusation 
now brought against him was of being guilty of complete 
obstinacy (insordescentia) ; and excommunication was _ pro- 
nounced against those only who persisted in rendering obedi- 
ence to the deposed sovereign ; the ceremony of the extin- 
guished tapers was expressive of public execration, and of assent 
to the judgment passed. Had not Thaddeus, who defended 
Frederick, taken for granted that the Council concurred in the 
sentence of the Pope, he would not have appealed, as he did, in 
fact, to a still ‘more General Council.’? Even Frederick himself, 
when he proclaimed that no German had taken part in passing 
sentence against him,’ made it clear that the bishops of other 
countries had taken part in it. Martin V. had therefore a right, 
in 1282, to say that Frederick II. had been deposed by Inno- 
cent IV. with the consent of the Council.? Nicholas of Curbio 
had before declared that all the prelates had assented, and had 
proved their assent by their signatures and seals.!° The words 
of the chroniclers,!! and indeed all the circumstances, make it 
evident that the presence of the Council is, in this case, equiva- 
lent to its approval, more especially as the Pope speaks of pre- 
vious careful deliberation with the Council.!2 The competence 
of the court was questioned hy none of the envoys ; they strove 
only for a delay of the sentence, and for indulgence for Fre- 
derick’s children. A tribunal utterly destitute of material power 
could never have passed sentence on so mighty a sovereign, had 
not its right been universally acknowledged ; or at least in so 
doing it would have met with loud opposition, especially from 
the envoys of sovereigns. An eminent jurist such as Innocent 
IV.!8 would never have been guilty of so great a blunder, nor 
would the bishops of all lands have assented to it. Frederick 
himself had not at first disputed the competence of the Church 
to pass judgment ; it was only after the Lyons sentence that he 
did so.45 This sentence was in no way out of keeping with the 
character of the times: the Pope made the declaration that 
Frederick had rendered himself unworthy of all honours and 
VOLT. ¥. 


222 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





dignities, and had thereby forfeited them; and that he (the 
Pope), in virtue of the binding and loosing power in the Church, 
released his subjects from their oath of allegiance.1® The ana- 
thema, as well as the release from oath, was an exercise of the 
spiritual power of the keys; the deprivation and removal from 
office were a consequence of the spiritual and civil laws then 
universally recognised, and with a view to these they were pro- 
nounced. Fénélon’s account of the matter may be here mentioned 
as quite satisfactory. 


1 Dianchiy til. Sheen 1p, Li, 

2 Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 13 et 14, dissert. 5, art. 3, n. 8, p. 111 seq- 
Bossuet, l.c. 7, 8. pp. 349-351. 

3 Hard. vii. 379, 380. Matth. Paris, a. 1245. 

4 Matth. Paris, h.a.: ‘Dominus igitur Papa et praelati assistentes 
Concilio candelis accensis in dictum imperatorem Fridericum, qui jamjam 
imperator non est nominandus, terribiliter, recedentibus et confusis ejus 
procuratoribus, fulgurarunt.’ 

5 Hefele, v. p. 319. 

6 Gosselin, ii. p. 182. It is always supposed that the members of a 
tribunal agree in the sentence pronounced by the president in their pre- 
sence, unless they expressly say to the contrary. Cf. also Roncaglia, 
Animady. in Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 11, diss. 2, § 3, v. fin. 

7 Hard. vii. 380. ’ 

8 Huillard-Bréholles, vi. 336. 

® D’Archery, Spicil. iii. 684, ed. Paris, 1723, sentence against the 
King of Aragon. Cf. Mamachi, Antiqu. t. iv. p. 247 seq. 

10 Muratori, Rer. Ital. Ser. iii. i. p. 592: ‘Sententiam depositionis 
saepe dicti Friderici protulit summus Pontifex in majori Ecclesia Lugdu- 
mensi a.D. 1244..... Quae fuit ab universis ecclesiarum praelatis in 
eodem Concilio residentibus approbata, sicut liquere potest omnibus tam 
praesentibus quam futuris per subscriptiones ipsorum et eorumdem sigilla 
pendentia in eadem.’ 

1 Guillelm. Nang. in gestis Philippi, iii. p. 538. Matth. Paris, a. 1247. 
Monach. Paduan. 1. iii. Chron. p. 591, ed. Urstis. 

12 «Cum fratribus nostris et S. Concilio deliberatione prachabita dili- 
genti.’ 

3 Cf. Schulte, Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts, § 16, pp. 60, 61, 2d ed. 

1 Bianchi, l.c. 1. i. § 18, n. 1-6, pp. 148-157. Gosselin, ii. pp. 180- 
183. 

15 Greg. IX. Ep. 2, ad Stephan. Cant. Aep. (Labbé, xi. p. 313). 
Fleury, t. xvi. 1. xxix. n. 37; t. xvii. 1. lxxxi. n. 9, 20, 46; 1. Ixxxii. n. 30, 31. 
Michaud, Hist. des Croisades, t. iv. pp. 512, 514. 

16 Labbé, xi. i. p. 645: ‘Nos itaque...cum Jesu Christi vices im- 
meriti teneamus in terris nobisque in B. Petri per sona sit dictum: Quod- 
cunque ligaveris super terram, &c., memoratum principem, qui sese im- 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 323 





perio et regnis omnique honore ac dignitate reddidit tam indignum, qui- 
que propter suas impietates a Deo, ne regnet vel imperet, est abjectus, 
suis ligatum peccatis et abjectum omnique honore et dignitate privatum a 
Domino ostendimus, denunciamus, ac nihilominus sententiando privamus, 
omnes, qui ei juramento fidelitatis tenentur adstricti, a juramento hujus- 
modi perpetuo absolventes.’ 

1 Fénélon, de Auctor. Summi Pontificis, c. xxxix. p. 387: ‘Idem est pror- 
sus ac si diceret: Declaramus eum ob facinora et impietatem indignum 
esse, qui gentibus Catholicis praesit ; declaramus contractum ab impera- 
tore palam violatum jam populos imperii non adstringere ; quandoquidem 
populi nonnisi pactis conditionibus subesse et parere volunt. In hoc 
Innocentius exercet potestatem a Christo datam: Quodcunque ligaveris 
super terram, &c., videl. ut Fridericum ligatum peccatis et populos jura- 
mento fidelitatis solutos declaret.’ 


§ 17. 


No less clearly speak the Councils of the fifteenth century, 
especially those of Constance and Basle. (a) The first issued a 
decree (July 14, 1415) against all who should in any way mo- 
lest the German King Sigismund on his journey to the Anti- 
pope Benedict; for the Dauphin of France, the Duke of Austria, 
and the Count of Savoy were suspected of being in conspiracy 
against him.! The decree menaced all possessors of spiritual, 
temporal, and even kingly dignities, with loss of the same in 

ease of disobedience.2 (b) This same Council had decreed (May . 
20, 1415) that neither of the claimants of the Papal chair could 
be again elected Pope, and warned all the faithful, of all ranks, 
even kings and emperors, against rendering them obedience, 
under pain of being chastised as promoters of schism.? (c) In 
like manner all holders of spiritual and temporal dignities are 
included in the decree of July 4th, by which it is prohibited to 
leave or to disturb the Council ; even kings and emperors are 
menaced with perpetual infamy and forfeiture of office ; and this 
was to take place at once, without further sentence, and to bring 
with it incapacity for all spiritual or temporal dignities and hon- 
ours. (d) Even in the command to keep perfect silence and 
peace, read and approved in the meeting of July 6th, excom- 
munication and two months’ imprisonment were laid down for 
all those, whatsoever their dignity, whether kingly or imperial, 
who should disobey it, together with the penalty inflicted on 


Loy Principles of the Middle Ages. 





the promoters of heresy.®° (¢) In the Monitorium, issued No- 
vember 21, 1415, against Frederick Duke of the Austrian Tyrol, 
for plundering and injuring the bishopric of Trent, he is strictly 
enjoined, ‘in virtue of holy obedience, and under pain of ana- 
thema, of sacrilege, and of the forfeiture of all the feudal posses- 
sions which he holds from the Church or the Empire,’ to give 
back that which he had robbed, and to acknowledge the sove- 
reignty of the prince-bishop within his territory.° (f) On March 
3, 1417, the above-named duke, together with his accomplices, 
was declared a rebel, and a robber of the Church, was laid 
under anathema, and punished with the loss of his dominions, 
and incapacity for holding others.7 (g) On July 26, 1417, 
sentence of deposition was passed on Peter de Luna (Benedict 
XIII.) ;§ and all the faithful, without distinction of rank or 
position, were forbidden to consider and honour him as Pope, 
under the penalty of promoters of heresy and schism, the loss of 
all spiritual and worldly offices and dignities, together with 
other canonical penalties.? (h) The decree on the Papal elec- 
tion, October 9, 1417, pronounced against those who should 
offer violence to the electors, injure their freedom, or cause it to 
be injured, the penalties of infamy and loss of office decreed by 
Boniface VIII. against those who should assault cardinals.1? 
(‘) In the order issued for the protection of the ecclesiastical 
liberties and possessions of the president of the Council (accord- 
ing to the resolutions of September 23, 1415), by which the laws 
of the Emperors Frederick IT. (1220) and Charles IV. (1377) 
on this subject were confirmed, all emperors, kings, and other 
dignitaries were admonished, under heavy penalties, not to 
burden the churches, even under pretext of the consent of the 
bishops, without obtaining leave of the Pope.!! (x) In like 
manner the Bull ‘ Inter cunctas,’ issued by Martin V., with the 
consent of the Council, February 22, 1418, inflicted on the 
adherents of the heresy of Wicliffe and Huss, without distine- 
tion of rank, the usual penalties, and amongst the rest the loss 
of all offices and dignities.!2 (7) The Council, convoked first 
(1423) by Martin V. in Pavia, in accordance with the decree of 
Constance, and [afterwards moved to Siena, confirmed the 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 325 





decrees against the adherents of Peter de Luna with precisely 
the same formulas.’ (m) The Council of Basle used the same 
terms (July 18, 1432) in the passport delivered to the Papal 
envoys,'* and spoke no less strongly (x) when it accepted the 
protection of Sigismund and the Duke of Bavaria.!° 


1 Hefele, Conc. vii. p. 231, n. 2. 

? Hard. Conc. viii. 441, Sess. xvii.: ‘Quicunque cujuscunque status 
aut conditionis existat, etiam regalis, cardinalatus, patriarchalis, archiepis- 
copalis, episcopalis, ducatus....seu alterius cujuscunque dignitatis et 
status ecclesiastici vel saecularis existat, qui serenissimum et Christianis- 
simum principem D. Sigismundum Romanorum et Hungariae regem vel 
alios cum eodem ad conveniendum cum D. rege Aragonum pro pace Eccle- 
siae....ad dictam conventionem euntes vel redeuntes impediverit, per- 
turbaverit vel molestaverit . . . . sententiam excommunicationis auctoritate 
hujus sacri Concilii generalis ipso facto incurrat, absolutione ejusdem ipsi 
sacro Consilio seu futuro unico et indubitato summo Pontifici, praeterquam 
in mortis articulo, speciafiter reservata, et alterius omni honore et digni- 
tate, officio, beneficio ecclesiastico vel saeculari, sit ipso facto privatus.’ 

3 Sess. xii. Hard. l.c. p. 375: ‘Nullus cujuscunque dignitatis vel 
praeeminentiae, etiamsi imperiali, regali, cardinalatus vel pontificali 
dignitate praefulgeat, eis vel eorum alteri contra hoc decretum ullo un- 
quam tempore obediat seu adhaereat, sub poena fautoriae dicti schismatis 
et maledictionis aeternae, ad quas contra praesumptores, si qui in pos- 
terum fuerint, etiam cum invocatione auxilii brachii saecularis, et alias 
rigide procedatur.’ 

* Sess. xiv. Hard. l.c. pp. 400, 401: ‘ Synodus statuit, ordinat et diffinit, 
quod quaecunque persona Concilii, cujuscunque status, gradus, ordinis 
aut praeeminentiae existat, ab hoc S. Concilio deinceps sine licentia Con- 
cilii vel ad hoc deputandorum recesserit, et quaecunque Concilii aut quae- 
vis alia persona ipsum Concilium quomodolibet perturbaverit . . . . perpetuo 
sit infamis omnique dignitate, honore, statu, officio et beneficio, ecclesias- 
ticis et saecularibus, etiamsi imperialis, regalis, cardinalatus aut ponti- 
ficalis existat, ipso jure privata, spe promotionis omnino sublata, nec 
aliquatenus ei aperiatur janua dignitatis aut honoris ecclesiastici aut 
mundani.’ 

5 Sess. xv: ‘SS. Synodus Const... . . praecipit et mandat sub poena 
excommunicationis latae sententiae, quam contravenientes vult incurrere 
ipso facto et sub poena carceris duorum mensium et fautoriae haeresis, ne 
aliquis, cujuscunque status, auctoritatis, gradus, ordinis, praeeminentiae 
aut conditionis fuerit, etiamst imperiali, regali, cardinalatus, archiepis- 
copali aut episcopali praefulgeat dignitate, in hac praesenti sessione ipsam 
sessionem seu pronunciantes et loquentes in eadem perturbet, murmuret, 
impediat, et quemvis strepitum voce aut pedibus faciat.’ 

® Sess. xx. Hard. l.c. pp. 465-471. 

* Sess. xxviii. Hard. lc. p. 697 seq. 

8 Sess. xxxvii. Hard. p. 835 seq. 

® The words are: ‘Atque privationis omnium beneficiorum, dignitatum 


326 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





et bonorum ecclesiasticorum et mundanorum, etiamsi episcopalis et patri- 
archalis, cardinalatus, regalis sint dignitatis aut imperialis; quibus si 
contra hance inhibitionem fecerint, sint auctoritate hujus decreti et sen- 
tentiae ipso facto privati, et alias juris incurrant poenas, ne eidem Petro 
de Luna tanquam Papae obediant.’ 

10 Sess. xxxix. Hard. p. 855 seq.: ‘Quod si quis hujusmodi metum vel 
impressionem aut violentiam elec oribus ipsis aut alicui ipsorum in elec- 
tione Papae intulerit seu fecerit aut fieri procuraverit, aut factum ratum 
habuerit, aut in hoc consilium dederit vel favorem .. . cujuscunque status, 
gradus, aut praeeminentiae fuerit, etiamsit imperiali, regali, pontificali 
vel alia quavis ecclesiastica aut saeculari praefulgeat dignitate, illas 
poenas ipso facto incurrat, quae in constitutione fel. rec. Bonifacii, p. viii. 
quae incipit Felicis (c. v. de Poenis, v. 9 in 6) continentur, illisque effec- 
tualiter puniatur.’ 

1l Sess. xix. Hard. l.c. pp. 463, 923 seq. Cf. Hefele, vii. p. 237 seq. 
The words are: ‘S. Synodus hoc perpetuo statuit et ordinat, quod nulla 
persona saecularis cujuscunque dignitatis, status et conditionis existat, 
etiamsi imperiali, regali, vel quaecunque praefulgeat dignitate, sub prae- 
textu consensionis episcopi clero tallias, impositfones vel subsidia imponat, 
exigat vel recipiat, nisi prius Romano Pontifice consulto, sub poenis, ban- 
nis, et censuris eisdem.’ This is spoken quite in the style of the hated 
Boniface VIII. e 

2 Hard. l.c. p. 905 seq. Hefele, p. 345 seq. Here it is said: ‘ Volu- 
mus insuper.... ut contra omnes et singulos utriusque sexus hujusmodi 
errores tenentes, approbantes ac fautores et receptatores eorum, cujus- 
cunque dignitatis, status vel conditionis existant, auctoritate nostra in- 
quirere studeant (episcopi et inquisitores) et eos, quos hujusmodi.... 
erroris labe respersos repererint, etiam per excommunicationis poenam 
.... nec non privationis dignitatum ... . corrigant et puniant.’ 

13 Inhibitionem factam omnibus et singulis Christifidelibus sub poenis 
fautoriae haeresis et schismatis ac privationis omnium beneficiorum, digni- 
tatum et bonorum ecclesiasticorum et mundanorum, et alias poenas infli- 
gendo, ut dicta sententia praefati Concilii (Const.) ... . latius continetur, 
ratam et gratam habens, ejus executionem continuari volens, decernit, 
statuit et declarat, omnes et singulos post obitum dicti Petri de Luna con- 
tinuantes seu perseverantes in credulitate vel obedientia erroris et schis- 
matis ejusdem Petri... . seu in vice ejus succedentes, eorumque recep- 
tatores, defensores et fautores, cujuscunque status, praeeminentiae vel 
conditionis existant etiamsi pontificali, cardinalatus, imperiali vel regali 
aut alia quaecunque ecclesiastica vel saeculari praefulgeant dignitate.... 
fore obnoxios et ligatos poenis et censuris in dicta sententia contentis. 

1 Exhortatur omnes et singulos Christifideles cujuscunque dignitatis, 
status, gradus aut praeeminentiae existant, spiritualis et temporalis, 
etiamsi regali, ducali, archiepiscopali, episcopali, vel alia quavis praeful- 
geant dignitate .... eisque virtute obedientiae mandat, ut si per eorum 
dominia, terras, territoria, civititates, oppida. . . . aut alia loca vos et quem- 
libet vestrum transire contingat, sub poenis, sententiis et censuris tam in 
Constantiensi et Senensi quam hujus 8. Synodi decretis contentis et fulmi- 
natis, districte injungendo quatenus vos et quemlibet vestrum ... . secu- 


Excommunication in the Middle A ges. 327 





ros, liberos et tutos cum rebus et bonis vestris universis ire, stare et redire 
sine molestia et impedimento permittant. 

15 Sub poena excommunicationis et privationis dignitatis cujuslibet 
ecclesiasticae vel mundanae interdicit, &c. 


§ 18. 

It is clear that these so-called reforming Councils, to which 
appeal has so often been made by liberal theologians of former 
days, have acted, as did the Popes, or even more strongly, upon 
the supposition of the subjection of things temporal to things 
spiritual—of the right of the Church in certain cases to dispose 
of worldly property, to pronounce the forfeiture of temporal and 
spiritual offices, and to inflict punishment even on the mightiest 
of princes. These principles they put in execution in their 
decrees against all who attempted to oppose them, were they 
emperors or kings, and this for comparatively small offences. 
Those who consider the Papal decrees of a like nature as intoler- 
able assumptions, iniquitous usurpations of power, and even as 
dogmatic errors, are bound to give a detailed explanation of the 
definitions of these Councils, more especially since they were 
passed by their own favourite Councils. It is true that Gallican 
theologians in particular have attempted to place these decrees 
in a milder light, and to modify and weaken their meaning by 
various explanations ; but either these explanations hold good 
likewise of the Papal Bulls, upon which so many of the decrees 
in form or in matter are based, (for example, see (k) supra), and 
in which, in fact, less strong expressions have been chosen, or 
else the authority of the decrees of these Councils, like those of 
the Popes, must be rejected; and this would be to give up 
completely principles which have been hitherto retained, at 
least outwardly. Those who support the 23d condemned Propo- 
sition of the Syllabus of 1864 know well enough that Councils 
as well as Popes are therein included. Nothing then remains 
but to reject the authority of Councils together with that of 


Popes. 
§ 19. 


Various remarks have been made by Gallican theologians! on 
the subject of these decrees, both in general and in detail. I, In 


328 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





general the Gallicans say: (1) They areto be understood divisim et. 
in sensu accomodo, so that the spiritual penalties apply to kings, 
but not the temporal.? (2) The Fathers inflicted temporal pun- 
ishments in virtue of the assent of temporal princes, represented 
by their ambassadors, and of the civil laws already in existence.* 
(3) The Council of Constance gave its safety into the charge of 
Sigismund, the King of the Romans ;* had it been part of the- 
business of the Council to defend itself, it would not have made 
the demand of the king; Sigismund acceded to the request, 
thus making clear the distinction existing between the two- 
powers.° (4) Further, the Council openly acknowleged that 
after the degrading of Huss the Church could do no more, and 
thus proclaimed that the State alone had power to inflict tem- 
poral punishment.® (5) Had the Council of Constance intended 
to imply the doctrine that the Church has any supremacy or 
power, direct or indirect, over the State, it would have been in 
favour of the doctrine on tyrannicide, which it itself con- 
demned.’ (6) That the Council had no such intention is proved 
by the fact that its most eminent members, Peter d’Ailly and 
Gerson, opposed such teaching.8 (7) The Council by no means. 
desired by its utterances to lay down a law or establish a rule. 
In a question so closely affecting the majesty of temporal rulers. 
it could decide nothing without deliberating on the matter, hear- 
ing the princes themselves, and proceeding strictly according to 
the votes of the Fathers. Since the subject of the authority of 
the Church in relation to the State was neither deliberated nor: 
voted upon in the discussions by ‘nations’ or in the solemn as- 
semblies, it is certain that the Council did not intend to deter- 
mine and define anything to the prejudice of sovereigns.? If 
the words of the fourth and fifth sessions, on the superiority of 
the Council, are not to be considered as a binding decree, neither 
can any such definition be recognised in the expressions now 
under consideration.!° 


1 Besides Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 15 et 16, dissert. 5, t. xviii. p. 293. 
seq. ed. Bing. 1790, and Bossuet, Def. Decl. Cleri. Gall. P. i. 1. iv. c. x. p. 
355 seq. ed. Mog. 1788, see especially Remonstrantia Hibernorum con- 
tra Lovanienses ultramontanasque censuras de incommutabili regum im- 
perio subditorumque fidelitate auctore R. P. F. R. Caron, theologo emerito- 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 329 





(reprinted from the London edition of 1665 in the Traitez des Droits et 
Libertez de l Eglise Gallicane, Paris, 1731, t. ii. p.ii.). In the dedication 
to Charles II. of England it is said of this Remonstrantia: ‘Quod sub 
umbra alarum tuarum velut sub ara Jovis reposita non minus eo ipso quam 
Delos Apollini consecrata sacrosancta redderetur et immunis.’ Cf. also 
De la Hogue, de Ecclesia, p. 275 seq.; Tournely, de Ecclesia, t. ii. p. 459 
seq. 
2 Natal. Alex. l.c. n. 4, p. 297. 

5 Bossuet, l.c. p. 355: ‘Dicimus...si quid ibi a Patribus de poenis 
temporabilus decernatur, id fieri consensu principum, qui ex toto orbe 
Christiano per legatos aderant, eoque jure, quo Ecclesia ad temporales 
poenas inferendas principum constitutionibus adjuvatur.’ So also Caron, 
l.c. P. v. c. x. n. 32, p. 191, in relation to passage (a) in § 19 above, to 
which also is added as a second answer: ‘ Concilium, dum decretum illud 
emanasset, oecumenicum non fuisse ;’ and also that the Council of Basle 
(Sess. xii.) once omitted the deprivation a beneficio saeculari, which are cer- 
tainly weak arguments. 

* Sess. xiv.: ‘S. Synodus exhortatur invictissimum principem D. Sigis- 
mundum Romanorum et Hungariae regem, quatenus placeat, patentes 
literas sub suae majestatis sigillis dare et omnibus principibus, vasallis 
et subditis s. Imperii, et praesertim civibus et incolis civitatis Constan- 
tiensis, praecipere et mandare, quod manutenebunt et defendent praedic- 
tum Concilium....quamdiu duraverit, et quicunque (decretum istud) 
non observaverit cujuscunque dignitatis .... existat,....eo ipso sen- 
tentiam imperialis banni incurrat, perpetuo sit infamis, nec ei unquam 
portae dignitatis pateant, nec ad aliquod officium publicum admittatur, 
quin imo omnibus feudis ac aliis bonis, quae a Romano tenet Imperio, sit: 
ipso jure privatus.’ 

5 Bossuet, l.c. : ‘Quae ad ecclesiasticam dignitatem et utilitatem maxime 
pertinentia, si per sese 8. Synodus decernere potuisset, non erat, cur a rege 
requireret. Qua de re rex decernit his verbis: qui statuit terminos gen- 
tium secundum numerum angelorum, et utrorumque ministeria miro ordine 
dispensans, sicut choros angelicos variis dignitatibus .... mirabiliter in- 
signivit, sic et Ecclesiam adhuc militantem in terris diversis tam spiritu- 
alium quam temporalium distinzit titulis potestatum ut pulchra fidelibus, 
et infidelibus terribilis apparens, ut castrorum acies ordinata procedat. 
(Here, as in the language of Boniface VIII., spiritual and temporal rulers 
are included in the Church militant=Christendom.) Qua temporalium 
et spiritualium distinctione ex jure divino explicata, temporales poenas 
ipse decernit, utilitati ecclesiasticae servituras. At si has Ecclesia per 
se inferre potuisset, distinctionem vanam neque ex jure divino imperator 
explicasset, neque 8S. Synodus recepisset.’ 

® Natal. Alex. p. 297: ‘ Secundo S. Synodus in sententia contra J. Hus 
ipsum attento, quod Ecclesia Dei non habeat ultro quod gerere valeat 
[words of Celestine III. c. Cum ab homine, ii. 1, de J ud.], judicio saecu- 
lari relinquere et curiae saeculari relinquendum fore decernit. Habuisset 
autem Synodus post degredationem, quid ulterius gereret, si Ecclesia jus 
haberet gladii temporalis per totum orbem Christianum ratione peccati, 
et maxime haereseas; poenas enim temporales in J. Hus decernere po- 


330 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





tuisset, non curiae saeculari decernendas reliquisset.’ Cf. Caron, l.c. P. ii. 
Cc. Vi. p. 64. 

7 Natal. Alex. l.c. pp. 298, 299, Sexto. 

8 Tbid. pp. 299-301, Nono. 

9 Ibid. p. 297, n. 4, Init. 

10 Bossuet, l.c. p. 358, who appeals to the Doctrina Lovanens. pp. 73, 
74, on Can. de loc. Theol. v. 6. Bellarm. de Cone. ii. 19. The challenge: 
‘ Ostendant has formulas confuse congestas formam habere decreti, osten- 
dant, in his propositum aliquid omnibus ad credendum, ostendant saltem 
in iis aliquid distincte dictum, quod ad rem nostram pertineat,’ is still 
more disregarded by the later opponents of the Papal decrees. 


§ 20. 


II. Next come the remarks made by the Gallicans in detail 
on the decrees in question, which are as follows: (1) Referring to 
the passage (a) above, the loss of spiritual and temporal offices 
is to be understood of those which belonged to the Church, 
either originally, or by rights gained in later times :! and the 
same interpretation holds good of many other passages. (2) As 
to passage (d), they object that it is an absurdity to sentence the 
King of the Romans to two months’ imprisonment, and that the 
expressions as to the kingly and imperial dignity can relate only 
to the highest officials of the empire.? (3) In the case of the 
Duke of Austria (e), the Council pronounced the loss of Church 
fiefs by its own authority, but the loss of the fiefs of the empire 
by the authority of the imperial law, and also by that of Sigis- 
mund, whom the duke had disobeyed.’ (4) As a consequence, 
the execution of the sentence (7) was also given over to the 
King of the Romans. (5) In the passage (2) the quotation is 
not from the Bull ‘ Unam sanctam,’ but from the Constitution 
‘Felicis,’ which treats of Church feudatories alone,® and respects 
the rights of temporal princes.° (6) The decree of the presi- 
dent of the Council (/) is founded upon the fourth Lateran 
Council (which, however, in can. 467 was not speaking of 
sovereigns) quite as much as on the laws of Frederick II. and 
Charles IV., which apply only to vassals, dukes, counts, and 
barons ;§ when kingdoms are mentioned they are only such as 
were like Naples, Corsica, and Sardinia, fiefs of the Roman 
Church.® (7) In the Bull of Martin V. the very words them- 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 331 





selves prove that the question was not of fiefs in general (x), 
but of Church fiefs ;!° and the same is proved by other passages 
in the Acts of the Council of Constance.!!_ In like manner, 
earlier Councils!? have reference to the fiefs held from the 
Church, and bestowed by her. The fiefs of the German Empire 
may be in some sort considered as Church fiefs, since the em- 
pire itself was looked upon as a fief of the Pope.!* In short, 
that which, in expression, is joined together by the Council, 
must, in interpretation, be separated according to its different 
members.!* (8) The words of the Council of Basle (n) are also 
to be understood to mean that those over whom the Church had 
gained such a right were punished with the loss of temporal 
dignities and offices.15 


1 Bossuet, Le. p. 357. 

? Natal. Alex. l.c. p. 297: ‘ Porro quod poenam carceris in imperatorem 
et reges ob silentii violationem Synodus decreverit, quam reipsa infligere 
non potuisset, quis sibi persuadeat ? Praeterea nullus in ea sessione praeter 
Sigismundum.... rex aderat; his igitur verbis: etiamsi imperiali, re- 
gali....praefulgeant diynitate sacrae personae imperatoris vel regum 
non intelliguntur, sed qui primariis imperii vel regnorum dignitatibus con- 
spicui sunt, ad quos hisce poenis coercendos S. Concilium imperatorem 
ac reges hortatur.’ 

5 Natal. Alex. l.c. pp. 297, 298, Tertio. Bossuet, pp. 355, 356. 

‘ Natal. Alex. p. 298: ‘Cui Sigismundo 8. Synodus latae in eamdem 
Frid. sententiae executionem ut Ecclesiae defensori et advocato commisit.’ 
Sess. xxviii. 

5 Ib. Quarto: ‘ Porro si Conc. Const. reges aliosque supremos principes 
decreto illo poenali complecti voluisset, quoad poenam ex auctorationis et 
privationis jurium temporalium, laudasset potius Const. Bonifacii, quae 
incipit: Unam sanctam, quam Constitutionem Felicis, quum ista in dominos 
dumtaxat temporales Ecclesiae feudatarios, qui S.R.E. cardinales fuerint 
hostiliter insecuti vel percusserint aut ceperint ac eorum conscios tem- 
porales poenas decernat.’ 

5 Boniface here says: ‘Per hoc quoque saecularibus potestatibus non 
adimimus facultatem utendi legibus contra tales, quas adversus sacrilegos 
eatholici principes ediderunt.’ 

7 C. 7, de Immunit. Eccles. iii. 49. 

® Natal. Alex. l.c. p. 299, Octavo. 

® Bossuet, l.c. p. 357. 

10 The words: ‘ privationis ....feudorum, quae a quibuscunque Eccle- 
siis, monasteriis ac aliis locis ecclesiasticis obtinent.’ Cf. Natal. Alex. 
p. 299, Septimo; Bossuet, p. 356. 

". E.g. Sess. xli.: ‘feudisque et rebus aliis, si quae aut quas in Romana 
vel aliis Ecclesiis obtinebit, sit privatus.’ Cf. Natal. Alex. l.c. p. 298, Quinto. 


a2 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





2 Conc. Lugd. ii. sub Greg. X. c. 2 (c. 8, de Elect. i.6 in 6). Cone. 
Vienn. in Const. Ad providam (Hard. vii. p. 1340 seq.). Natal. Alex. p. 301, 
Decimo. 

13 Bossuet, p. 357. Cf. c. ix. p. 351 seq. 

14 Bossuet, p. 8356: ‘ Quae conglobata licet, quis non videat jure tamen 
diversissimo decerni, nec ab eodem fonte manare, confuseque dicta tamen 
congrue apteque singulorum ratione habita intelligi exercerique debere ?’ 

15 Bossuet, p. 357: ‘ Facile intelliguntur privari dignitate etiam mun- 
dana ii, in quos sibi tale jus Ecclesia comparavit.’ 


§ 21. 


Manifold objections can be and frequently have been raised 
to these interpretations. J. As to the general remarks; it is 
(1) inconceivable that the Council of Constance in all the pass- 
ages quoted intended that only the spiritual punishments men- 
tioned, and not the temporal, should apply to kings; the word- 
ing of the decree would in this case be far worse than unskilful :4 
it is drawn up in general terms, which are opposed to any such 
limitation; where the law makes no distinction, we have no 
right to make any such. The punishments, temporal and spi- 
ritual, were inflicted in precisely the same way on all those named, 
without distinction of rank and position. On other occasions 
Papal decrees contained the merely general clause, ‘ Whatso- 
ever be their rank’ (cujuscunque conditionis, &c.),? whereas it 
is in this case made far stronger by the addition of the words, 
‘although he be of imperial, kingly, or any other dignity’ 
(etiamsi imperiali, regali, &c.). (2) There is no sign that the 
consent of temporal princes or of their envoys—and by no means 
all Catholic sovereigns were represented there—was asked or 
given, The Council makes use of the simple straightforward 
words, ‘The holy Council decrees, commands, and defines,’* 
and it inflicts punishments ‘by the authority of this holy Coun- 
cil, and in consideration of this decree and judgment.’# The 
Council of Constance claims for itself this right, just as the 
Popes had done before it, and rather in greater than in less 
degree. If the Popes are to be blamed for presumption and 
error, the accusation falls with equal force on the Councils. No 
single syllable of the decree points to concession or consent on 
the part of sovereigns to the appointed punishments of loss of 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 333 





all honours and offices, be they spiritual or temporal ; these are 
called mundanae, saeculares dignitates, and are specified accord- 
ing to the rank of the holder, the kingly and imperial dignity 
being expressly included. Moreover, how could the consent of 
sovereigns make this proceeding lawful? LEither all Christian 
sovereigns had collectively the power to declare a king or prince 
deprived of his kingdom, in which case he was not, under all 
circumstances, an independent prince, or they had not this 
power ; in which case they could not impart it to the Council, 
either in person or through their envoys, since no one can give 
that which he does not himself possess. Thus the consent of 
sovereigns would in no way have entitled the Council to act as 
it did. Again, it is hard to conceive why sovereigns should 
ever have given their consent, unless they and most or many of 
their contemporaries supposed the Church to have received cer- 
tain powers in this matter, justified at least by the custom of 
centuries, by prescriptive title, and by previous consent. The 
fact that in individual cases the Council relied upon civil law 
is no proof that this was always the case, or that it did not 
consider itself authorised to overstep the limits of civil law and 
issue its own independent commands. It even confirmed im- 
perial laws. (See above, passage (7) in§ 17.) (3) It was but 
natural that the Council should desire to secure its safety by a 
decree of King Sigismund, since he alone was in a position 
effectually to insure it and to repel all evildoers; and with- 
out his aid the Council, in spite of its activity in passing 
laws, had no power to put them into execution. A direct 
power in matters temporal and the wielding of the material 
sword had never been ascribed to the Church, even by the 
Popes. The distinction between the two powers was recog- 
nised by the Fathers of Constance as well as by the Popes 
and by Sigismund ; nevertheless they shared the belief, uni- 
versal in the Middle Ages, that in extraordinary cases and in 
urgent need the spiritual power may extend to matters tem- 
poral. (4) In the case of the degradation of Huss, the Council 
was forced to acknowledge, according to the words of Pope 
Celestine III. and to the law of the decretals, that the Church 


got Principles of the Middle Ages. 





could go no further ; since the spiritual judge was unable, by 
ecclesiastical law, to pronounce sentence of death, and to take 
part in any such sentence constituted an irregularity.? (5) The 
teaching concerning tyrannicide must never be confounded with 
the theological doctrine of the Middle Ages on the power of 
the Church over the State, for the two questions are entirely 
distinct ; the declaration that a certain person has forfeited his 
rights, goods, and dignities is far from being a declaration that 
he has also forfeited his life, and least of all is it a decree that 
a subject has a right to take it from him.* The theological doc- 
trine as to forfeiture of goods, &c. was so firmly rooted at the 
time of the Council of Constance, that the use made of it by the 
Council can cause no astonishment.’ Indeed (6) the very au- 
thors here cited, Gerson and d’Ailly, by no means utterly reject 
it.1° (7) It is universally admitted that these expressions of the 
Councils of the fifteenth century contain no definition of dogma, 
In passing, and in a wider sense, certain theologians have de- 
clared that doctrine to be defined which seemed to them un- 
doubtedly true (sententia certa); but, as has been already shown, 
there is here no dogmatic definition, either by Pope or by Council. 
The expressions cited have no less weight than those of the 
same nature used by the Popes. Certain Gallicans are so in- 
consistent as to lay stress on the decrees of Constance and Basle 
treating of the Papal powers (especially those of the fourth and 
fifth sessions, the ecumenical character of which is on the best 
grounds contested), while they utterly reject the decrees treat- 
ing of princes, issued in some cases by sessions the ecume- 
nical character of which has been universally admitted.” 


1 Mamachi, Orig. et Antiqu. t. iv. p. 246, nota: ‘ Verba, quae synodus 
usurpat, tam late patent, ut coarctari in sensum arctiorem nequeant.’ 

2 E.g.c. 3, de Elect. i. 6 in 6. 

3 *§, Synodus statuit, ordinat et diffinit.’ Roncaglia, note 1 in Alex. 
Natal. l.c. p. 302. 

4 ¢ Auctoritate hujus 8. Concili, auctoritate hujus decreti et senten- 
tiae.’ Vide supra, § 17, (a) and (h), and note 2 and 9. 

5 Bianchi, t. i. 1. i. § 19, n. 1, 2, pp. 158-160. 

° Roncaglia, l.c. p. 303. 

7 Roncaglia, p. 302. 

® Roncaglia, l.c. pp. 302, 303. Bianchi, l.c. § 8, n. 2 seq. p. 79 seq. 


Excommunication in the Middle Ages. 335 





® Roncaglia, p. 302: ‘Satis mihi est observare, id temporis adeo in- 
valuisse doctrinam asserentem Ecclesiae potestatem poenas temporales 
in principes decernendi, ut hoc negare apud quosdam haeresis haberetur. 
Ita expresse affirmavit Aeneas Sylvius in oratione habita ad Australes, 
quam legere est apud Muratorium Anecd. t. ii.’ 

10 Roncaglia, p. 303. Cf. Schwab, Gerson, p. 735. Peter d’Ailly, in the 
passages quoted by Natal. Alex. (saec. 15 et 16, diss. 5, n. 3, t. xviii. p. 
300), denies only the potestas directa et temporalis. 

11 Mamachi, p. 247, nota: ‘ Neque id nos declaratum a Synodo ut fidei 
dogma nunc dicimus, sed sumtum ac positum ut rem certam.’ Bianchi, 
l.c. § 19, n. 6, p 166: ‘Noi perd non pretendiamo, che la nostra sentenza 
sia stata come domma di religione nei sacri Concilii dichiarata e definita, 
ci basta che da Sinodi generali sia stata supposta come certa e riputata 
del poter della Chiesa, ed anche non solo senz’ alcuna contraddizione 
de’ principi, ma con pieno consentimento di tutti i signori e monarchi del 
mondo Cattolico eseguita e pratticata.’ 

12 Bianchi, l.c. n. 7, p. 167. 


§ 22. 

In answer to the objections in detail, it may be allowed that 
single decrees did treat of the loss only of fiefs held from the 
Church ; but it by no means follows from this that all other de- 
crees, especially those in which all sovereigns without excep- 
tion were included, are to be limited to the domains held as 
fiefs of the Church.! Had the question been one of Church 
fiefs merely, the Fathers would have had no need of the consent 
of temporal princes before deposing rebellious vassals ; the feudal 
law then in force would have borne them out, for the Roman 
Church had over her vassals precisely the same rights as other 
feudal lords, and could punish ‘ felony’ in the same way.2, What 
need then of the consent of temporal princes? Moreover, there 
is no ground for the assertion that the Holy Roman Empire was 
considered altogether as a fief of the Roman Church ; the Ger- 
man kingdom, distinct according to strict law from the empire, 
was certainly not so considered ; but beyond this the empire 
itself, although in many ways dependent upon the Apostolic 
See, was not held in fief. Sigismund, at Constance, would 
never have agreed to any such assertion. It cannot therefore 
be proved that the deprivation of worldly dignities, proclaimed 
without distinction for certain crimes, as at Constance, was 
limited to the vassals of the Church and of the Holy Roman 


236 Principles of the Middle Ages. 


a 
v 





Empire. The words of most of the decrees allow of no excep- 
tion; and if, according to Bossuet,°® the words of the third and 
fourth Lateran Councils apply to all feudatories, those of the 
Councils of Constance and Basle are still less capable of limita- 
tion. Moreover, facts are decidedly against it. When, after 
the conclusion of the Council of Constance, Count John of 
Armagnac persisted in his adherence to the Antipope Benedict, 
Martin V. summoned him to receive sentence of loss of sove- 
reignty, according to the decree of the Council.’ The Fathers 
knew well enough that they were unable to subject King Sigis- 
mund to two months’ imprisonment for causing disturbance in 
the Council, and that in his case spiritual penalties alone could 
be inflicted ; but it does not therefore follow that when they 
mentioned the possessors of imperial and kingly dignity (d) 
they intended merely the officials representing them, any more 
than that they intended merely the servants of cardinals, arch- 
bishops, and bishops, when they mentioned those holding the 
rank of cardinal, archbishop, and bishop. The sentence would 
without doubt have been ridiculous, had it not set forth the 
power of the Church to inflict temporal punishments upon all 
Christians, whatsoever their station; but setting forth such a 
power the decree might with perfect reason be issued, even 
though the two months’ imprisonment were not intended per- 
sonally for the king of the Romans and future emperor. The 
constitution of Boniface VIII. had not specially and expressly 
named those holding the dignity of king or emperor; the Council 
of Constance, according even to Bossuet,® included these also. 
The reason why the Constitution ‘Felicis’ was the one especially 
quoted is, evidently, that it treats of the same subject-matter. 
The Bull ‘Unam sanctam’ treated of the subject in general, where- 
as the ‘Felicis’ was precisely suited to the particular question, and 
was therefore adopted as a precedent. In this case the Council 
of Constance evidently went further than the obnoxious Boni- 
face VIII.; even though the extended formula ‘ of whatsoever 
rank,’ &c. be set down to the legal style adopted by the Council, 
still some principle must surely be involved in the widened 
form of words. Finally, the limited sense given to the words 


Excommunication tn the Middle Ages. 337 





of the Council of Basle is in accordance neither with the ex- 
pressions themselves nor, least of all, with the general proceed- 
ings of this assembly, which, before it broke up, was without a 
head and utterly schismatical. For it went further than any Pope 
or Council in treating of civil and especially feudal questions, 
so much so that Sigismund complained loudly of this, and of its 
interference with his rights of sovereignty;1° it even sought to be 
judge in the quarrel between Duke Eric of Sachsen-Lauenburg 
and Frederick II. of Saxony, on the electoral dignity.14 Osten- 
sibly it adhered closely in all things to the proceedings of Con- 
stance, but from time to time it went beyond them. Even were 
the statement of Gosselin admitted,!? in which he says: ‘The 
Councils of Constance and Basle might take for granted the 
consent of Christian princes to the decrees in question, espe- 
cially since they confine themselves entirely (7) to confirming 
and renewing punishments enjoined by the universal legislature 
of Catholic Europe for heresy and excommunication,’—still this 
view neither explains the facts nor is it consistent with them. 
On the contrary, these Councils took for granted the sum-total 
of the rights claimed and exercised in that day by the Church 
upon any title whatsoever, whether spiritual or temporal ; and 
thus they placed themselves on an equal footing with the an- 
alogous Papal Briefs, which have no more given a decisive doc- 
trinal utterance than have these Councils. They met with op- 
position neither greater nor less than did the analogous decrees 
of the Roman Pontiffs, and they found support in the same 
principles which held sway throughout the Middle Ages. A 
‘supremacy of the Pope over princes and people in political 
things’! was certainly not asserted by the Bishops of Rome in 
the first ten centuries ; but neither was it asserted by those of later 
centuries either in any universal sense, apart from special titles, 
or in relation to such things as were purely temporal. Only 
in so far as things temporal entrenched upon the province of the 
Church and in extremest need, when the salvation of souls and 
the stability of the Church were in danger, did they take upon 
themselves a further power, in the firm conviction that it lay 
within their authority to employ means requisite to the desired 
VOL. I. Zz 


338 Principles of the Middle Ages. 





end,14 and supported in this conviction by the principles uni- 
versally held in that day. As a rule, they made use of their 
spiritual power alone; but a moral superiority over temporal 
princes was given them by the whole growth of Christian States, 
and their position as the fathers and leaders of Christendom 
prepared for them an extensive field of action. When things 
spiritual and things temporal were so closely united such could 
not fail to be the case. 


1 Roncaglia, p. 302. 

2 Bianchi, l.c. n. 3, pp. 161, 162. 

3 Mamachi, p. 246, nota: ‘ Agi deinde de officiis et beneficiis Bossue- 
tius censet, quae Ecclesiae vel innato vel acquisito jure essent. Hoc 
autem si verum est, quid opus esset consensione principum ad privandos 
refractarios officio ac beneficio, quod Ecclesiae vel innato vel acquisito 
_ jure competeret? Quidergo? Vir gravissimus vi argumenti pressus modo 
hoc, modo illud opponit, ut tueri se posset.’ 

4 Bianchi, l.c. n. 4, pp. 162, 163. 

5 Bossuet, l.c. c. iv. p. 342. 

6 Bianchi, l.c. n. 4, 5, pp. 163-165. 

7 «Secundum tenorem decreti et sententiae generalis Concilii Const., 
qua reus declarandus fuerat ac privandus comitatu Armeniacensi et Ru- 
thensi ac omnium aliarum terrarum et dominiorum suorum.’ Mansi, 
note 2 in Nat. Alex. l.c. p. 303, who adds: ‘ Hic non agitur de feudis im- 
perialibus vel ecclesiasticis, quae elusio est P. Alexandri, sermo est de 
sententia Concilii executioni mandanda. Quid hic reponet P. Alexander ?’ 
Measures contra dominos temporales ac populos qui illos [the Popes de- 
posed at Pisa] fovere ac sustinere voluerint, had already been taken into 
consideration. Dollinger, Beitrage, ii. p. 302. 

§ Roncaglia, l.c. p. 302. 

® Bossuet, l.c. p. 357: ‘Bonifacii VIII. Const. Felicis .... adversus 
eos extenditur qui imperiali, regali.... praefulgeant dignitate.’ 

10 Bossuet, lc. p. 358. Martene et Durand. viii. 722. Monumenta 
Concil. General. saec. 15, Vindob, 1857, pp. 520-522. 

11 Hollinger, Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte, ii. p. 330. 

12 P. ii. p. 275. 

13 Huber, p. 6. 

‘4 According to the sentence: ‘ Cui jurisdictio data est, ea quoque con- 
cessa esse videntur, sine quibus jurisdictio explicari non potuit’ (1. ii. Cui 
Dig. ii. 1, de Jurisd.). 


ESSAY VIL. 
CIVIL RULERS AND THE HOLY SEE. 


Civ rulers in the Middle Ages regarded their relation to the 
Church as it was regarded by Popes and theologians, and 
shared their opinions except when passion or self-interest inter- 
fered. They considered that to support the action of the Church 
by their civil authority, to punish those who disobeyed her, and 
to act always as her defenders and protectors, were amongst their 
gravest duties.!_ The most powerful princes have expressed in 
many documents their desire to secure, through pious zeal for 
the Church, peace and prosperity to their governments and ever- 
lasting blessedness to themselves.2 I. The jurisdiction of the 
Church was especially exercised by Popes over princes in their 
matrimonial affairs. II. This ecclesiastical jurisdiction was ex- 
pressly recognised by princes. 


Part I. EcciesiastTicaL JURISDICTION EXERCISED BY THE POPES 
OVER Civit PRINCES IN THEIR MaTRIMONIAL AFFAIRS. 


§ 1. King Robert of France. § 2,3. Simony of Philip I. § 4-7. His 
marriages. § 8-11. Philip Augustus. § 12. The King of Leon. 


§1l. 

That kings were, as Christians, subject in their private lives 
like all other believers to the supremacy of the Church was 
never doubted, and Popes often punished and censured their 
misdeeds. Pope Nicholas I. maintained the sanctity of marriage 
in regard to Lothair II., who had divorced his wife Theut- 
berge, and lived in adultery with Waldrade.* Another striking 
instance is that of King Robert of France, who, with the consent 
of several bishops of his kingdom, had incestuously married his 


340 Crul Rulers and the Holy See. 





kinswoman Bertha. For this satisfaction was required of him 
from Gregory V., a.v. 997; and the following year he was 
sentenced to do penance for seven years. In the year 1000 the 
zealous Abbot of Fleury (who died in 1004) succeeded in induc- 
ing the king to submission; he renounced his connection 
with Bertha, and lived till his death in 1031 an exemplary 
life. Even if the stories of St. Peter Damiani® are mere hear- 
say, we have plenty of proof of the impression made in France 
by ecclesiastical censures. There was no cause for deposing the 
king,’ and Robert’s final decision set him quite straight with 
the Church.8 Later, in 1069, a new scandal threatened the 
Church when Henry IV. of Germany wished to separate from 
his wife; but St. Peter Damiani dissuaded him from his idea.,° 


1 Childebert in Capitul. (Labbé, Conc. vi. p. 487, ed Venet.): ‘Et quia 
necesse est, ut plebs, quae sacerdotis praecepta non ita ut oportet cus- 
todit nostro etiam corrigatur imperio,’ &c. Facundus of Hermiane (pro 
Defens. trium Capitulorum, 1. xii. ¢. iii.) praised the Emperor Marciam be- 
cause he ‘suo contentus officio ecclesiasticorum canonum executor esse 
voluit.’ 

2 Cf. the diploma granted in 1150 by Conrad IT. to the monastery of 
Corvei (Migne, PP. Lat. clxxxix. p. 1497). 

3 Baron. a. 866, n. 37-42. Lothair wrote: ‘Cernuo lumine vestram 
affatim deposcimus paternitatem, ut dum nos vobis missisque vestris .... 
per omnia super omnes coaequales nostros obedire volumus, non aliquem 
nostri Deo miserante consimilem super nos extollere aut terrae prae- 
ponere vestrae libeat paternitati.’ Nicholas had only warned him that 
if he did not amend a severe sentence would fall upon him: ‘ Coram tota 
et cum tota Ecclesia luce clarius peremtorio Dei judicio, tota producta 
spicula, patieris et procul dubio cunctis videntibus praecipitaberis’ (Floss, 
Leonis P. Privilegium, Doc. iv. p. 32). 

4 Mansi, xix. 233, 223. Pertz, v. 694. MHefele, iv. 619,622. Hofler, 
Deutsche Papste, i. 125, 170. 

5 Mabillon, Ann. O.8.B.1.i.¢. lxxiv. Helgaldi, Epit. Vitae Roberti Reg. 
ap. Bouquet, x. 107. Hofler, l.c. p. 184. 

6 Petr. Dam. Opusce. 34, ¢. vi.; Opp. iii. 260. 

7 Bossuet clearly shows that there was none, Defens. P.i. 1. ii. c, xxvii. 
p. 237. 

8 Leo IX. wrote subsequently to King Henry (Jaffé, n. 3270, p. 377): 
‘Pater tuus Robertus laude et consultu episcoporum regni tui Bertam, 
matrem Odonis comitis, duxit uxorem; ob quam rem, quoniam sibi erat 
carnis affinitate conjuncta, ab antecessore nostro cum episcopis, qui placito 
interfuerant, excommunicati, post ad Sedem Apostolicam venientes cum 
satisfactione, sumpta poenitentia, redierunt ad propria.’ 

® Hefele, iv. p. 817 seq. 


The Popes and Royal Marriages. 341 





§ 2. 

Half a century after Robert, the French King Philip I. was 
-a cause of great sorrow to the Holy See, on account of his op- 
pression of the Church, his practice of simony, and his immoral 
conduct.! Ina Brief of the year 1073, addressed to the Bishop of 
Chaélons-sur-Saone,? Gregory VII. complains of him, saying at 
the same time that as he hears through the chamberlain Alberich 
‘that Philip has promised amendment, he has delayed to proceed 
-against him with canonical severity ; Philip shall now, however, 
renounce the practice of simony, and without demanding any 
payment allow the Archdeacon of Autun, elected lawfully and 
with the royal consent, to be consecrated for the long-vacant see 
of Macon. If this were not done the Pope would no longer suf- 
fer the corrupt state of things, but would punish his stubborn 
obstinacy with the authority of the Prince of the Apostles. 
‘For either the king will abandon the shameful trade of simony, 
or the French people, if they do not wish to renounce the Chris- 
tian faith and be laid under an interdict, will refuse any longer 
to obey him.’? This censure was used as a last resort for the 
amendment of the king; its terms, as well as those of the fol- 
lowing Briefs, show plainly that the temporal effects of ecclesi- 
astical censure had a recognised authority in France. 

The king did not dare to disobey, and he made known to the 
Pope his fidelity and willingness to comply. Gregory answered 
him on the 13th April 1074 in a truly sublime Brief.® Philip 
should first make good the injuries done to the Church at Beau- 
vais, and reconcile himself to God, considering well that his pre- 
decessors enjoyed much fame as long as they defended the Church, 
thus receiving for their virtue honour and power, and losing them 
with the loss of their virtue. But Philip’s obedience proved to be 
one of words merely, not of deeds; whereupon the Pope sent an 
encyclical letter to all the French bishops, lamenting the ruin of 
France, the multitude of crimes and the impiety that prevailed, 
and laying all to the charge of the bad king. He said Philip 
had disgraced the kingly dignity by sacrilege, adultery, and per- 
jury, and by plundering foreign merchants like a common high- 


342 Civil Rulers and the Holy See. 





wayman ; that it was the duty of the bishops solemnly to warn 
him, to resist him in his unrighteousness, and to hold a synod 
for concerting measures against him ; if the king remained deaf 
to their voice, they were by virtue of the apostolic authority to 
lay him under a ban, and France under an interdict ; if he still 
remained obdurate, it should be the care of the Pope with the 
help of God to free France of him.?7 Gregory called upon Count 
William of Poitiers and the other nobles to expostulate with 
the king, threatening that if everything proved unsuccessful he 
would excommunicate not only the king, but all who still ac- 
knowledged him their ruler. The Pope wrote also in the same 
sense to Archbishop Manasses of Rheims.° 


1 Ivo Carnot. Ep. 35, 66. Guibert. de Nogento, de Vita sua, 1. iii. 
c. li. Fleury, Hist. Eccl. t. xiii. 1. lxxxii. n. 6, 16, 20. 

2 Greg. VII. 1.i. Ep. 35, p. 317, ed. Migne. Jaffé, Reg.n. 3571. Cf. 
also 1. i. Ep. 36, p. 318, to Archbishop Humbert of Lyons. 

3 Nam aut rex ipse, repudiata turpi simoniacae haeresis mercimonia, 
idoneas ad sacrum regimen personas promoveri permittet, aut Franci pro 
certo, nisi fidem Christianam abjicere maluerint, generalis anathematis 
mucrone percussi, illi ulterius obtemperare recusabunt. 

4 ‘Significasti....te B. Petro devote ac decenter velle obedire et 
nostra in his, quae ad ecclesiasticam religionem pertinent, monita desider- 
anter audire atque perficere’ (Greg. 1.i. Ep. 75, p. 348. Jaffé, n. 3617). 

5 Hefele, Conc. v. p. 27 seq. 

6 ‘Quarum rerum rex vester, qui non rex, sed tyrannus dicendus est, 
suadente diabolo caput et causa est, qui omnem aetatem suam flagitiis 
polluit et suscepta regni gubernacula miser et infelix inutiliter gerens sub- 
jectum sibi populum non solum nimis soluto ad scelera imperio relaxavit, 
sed ad omnia, quae dici et agi nefas est, operum et studiorum suorum 
exemplis incitavit’ (1. ii. Ep. 5, p. 362 seq. J. n. 3637). 

7 Nulli ....dubium esse volumus, quin modis omnibus regnum Franciae 
de ejus occupatione tentemus eripere. 

8 ¢Si in perversitate perduraverit, nos Deo auxiliante et nequitia sua 
promerente in Rom. Synodo a corpore et communione S. Ecclesiae ipsum 
et quicunque sibi regalem honorem vel obedientiam exhibuerit, sine dubio 
sequestrabimus’ (1. ii. Ep. 18, p.376. J. n. 3650). 

® L. ii. Ep. 32, p. 387. J. n. 3666, d.d. 8 Dec. 1074. 


§ 3. 
Whilst many of the French bishops manifested a weak and 
lukewarm spirit, some even openly took part with the king. 
Seeing the Pope deprived of the assistance of the bishops, Philip 


The Popes and Royal Marriages. 343 





endeavoured to stay his hand by making many fair promises, and 
by repairing, at least in part, the injury he had done to the 
Church. The Roman Synod of Lent, 1075, had threatened him 
with excommunication, unless he gave assurance of his repent- 
ance and amendment to the legate sent expressly to France.! 
But since first of all with the bishops the principles of the 
Church had to be asserted, the legate Hugo of Die, at the Synods 
he held in 1076 and 1077, occupied himself principally with pun- 
ishing bishops guilty of simony and other crimes.?, King Philip 
was on the one hand writing the fairest promises to the Pope, 
whilst at the same time he was seeking to prevent.the bishops 
from appearing at the Synods, because he said that was injurious 
to the lustre of his crown. It became more and more evident 
that interference was necessary against criminal prelates, for in- 
stance, the Archbishops of Tours and Rheims, and that it was 
necessary also to publish the laws of the Church against simony 
and lay-investiture. This was done at the Synod of Poitiers 
in 1078.2 When in 1080 Gregory VII. detinitively removed 
Archbishop Manasses of Rheims from his see, he entreated the 
king* not to afford him protection, and not to hinder the choice 
of a successor. He declared to him that he would pardon the 
sins of his youth if he would from henceforth show himself the 
friend of justice and mercy, and lead a new life,—which did at 
last seem more likely. Philip had not only not recognised the 
Antipope Henry [V., but had placed himself in more friendly 
relations with the Church, and not resisted the measures taken 
against those bishops who had allowed themselves to forget their 
duty.° He knew the right time in which to ward off the blow 
that threatened him. 
1 Hefele, v. p. 36 seq. 
Ib. p. 101 seq. 
Ib. pp. 104 seq. 142 seq. 


3 
4 L. viii. Ep. 20, p. 593. J.n. 3917. 
5 Hefele, l.c. p.192. 


§ 4. 


But this same King Philip was the cause later of great trouble 
in another matter. In the year 1092 he divorced his wife Bertha, 


344 Civil Rulers and the Holy See. 





to whom he had been married since 1071, and who was the 
mother of his heir Prince Louis, and he married Bertrada of 
Montfort, who had left her first husband, Count Fulk of Anjou. 
The canonist Ivo, who since 1090 had been raised to the bishopric 
of Chartres, in place of the deposed Gaufried, earnestly remon- 
strated against this step, both with the king and with Archbishop 
Rainald of Rheims. He was not deceived by the pretence of 
the alleged approval of the Pope, and in spite of the king’s in- 
vitation held aloof from the marriage ceremony, which was per- 
formed in Paris by the Bishop of Senlis. For this he was im- 
prisoned by- King Philip.! In a Brief of 1092, Pope Urban II. 
censures the Archbishop of Rheims and his suffragan for their 
compliance with the desires of the sensual king, charged them 
to speak to him conscientiously, and to threaten him with the 
spiritual sword, and required, above all, the release of the faith- 
ful Bishop of Chartres.? The last was effected, and in November 
1093, Ivo came with the Pope to Rome, and remained with him 
till January 1094.° Through Philip’s management a great Synod 
was held at Rheims, which ratified his marriage, for in the mean 
time Bertha had died. It was also to pass judgment upon Ivo, 
being held under the presidency of his metropolitan, Archbishop 
Richer of Sens, Rainald of Rheims being supposed to be pre- 
vented by illness. This, however, was not really the case, and 
Rainald appeared ; but the ambitious Richer had been won over 
to the king’s side by promises, and had ratified his marriage with 
Bertrada. Ivo refused to allow himself to be judged out of his 
own province, and he appealed to the Pope.* 

The legate, Archbishop Hugo of Lyons,® at a Synod held in 
October 1094, at Autun, excommunicated Philip because he had 
taken a second wife during the lifetime of the first. The king 
not being able to go himself, sent an ambassador to the Synod 
at Piacenza, bearing his excuses and begging for a reprieve, which 
was granted him till Whitsuntide (from the beginning of March 
to the 13th May 1095).6 In November 1095, at the Synod of 
Clemont, in Philip’s own dominions, Urban pronounced against 
him and Bertrada sentence of excommunication,’ even, according 
to some accounts, against all who recognised him as king, or who 


The Popes and Royal Marriages. 345 





held unlawful intercourse with him.® This is very probable 
when all the circumstances are considered : Ivo of Chartres had 
as early as 1092 represented to the king that by his adulterous 
connection with Bertrada he was risking his crown and his king- 
dom ; he had kept back for some time the Pope’s encyclical 
letter, believing that a rising would take place aginst the king. 
He had already warned the Pope of the craftiness of Philip’s 
ambassador. Urban, on his side, had seen that an energetic 
condemnation of the king was now a necessity; and indeed 


Philip required very strong measures to bring him to submis- 
sion.1° 


1 Pag. a.1094,n.5. Bianchi, t. ii. l. v. § 9, n. 2, p. 274 seq. 

2 Mansi, xx. 686. Jaffé, n. 4088, p. 456. 

3 Jaffé, pp. 458, 459, from Ivo, Ep. 27, Opp. ii. 13. Ivo (Ep. 28, ad 
Philipp. Reg.) says the Pope had forbidden the bishops from crowning 
the king’s unlawful wife Bertrada. 

4 Hefele, p. 192. 

5 Cf. the letter of May 16, 1094 (Jaffé, n. 4134, p. 460). 

5 Berthold. Constant. a. 1094, 1095. Hefele, pp. 193, 194. 

7 Bernoldi, Chron. h.a. p. 464. Chron. Andegay. a. 1095, ap. Labbé, 
Nov. Bibl. mss. 1. Paris, 1657, i. 281. Hefele, p. 197. 

§ Guillelm. Malmesbur. de Gest. Angl. 1. iv. ¢. ii.: ‘In eo Concilio ex- 
communicavit D. Papa regem Philippum Francorum et omnes, qui eum vel 
regem vel dominum suum vocaverint et ei obedierint et ei locuti fuerint, 
nisi quod pertineret ad eum corrigendum.’ Also the Chronicle of the 
chorister Guido of Chélons and Alberich of Trois Fontaines apud Gos- 
selin, ii. p. 142. 

® Ivo, Ep. 15, ad Philipp. Reg.; Ep. 23 (al. 24), ad Widonem Dapifer ; 
Ep. 46, ad Urban P. 

10 Gosselin, pp. 144, 145. 


§ 5. 

But even before the Pope left the French dominions the 
king sought to make his peace with the Church. He vowed 
with his hand in the hand of the Pope, at Nimes, 1096, to 
leave Bertrada, and received the promise of being absolved as 
soon as he had given proof of the sincerity of his intention.! 
Some bishops who were completely on Philip’s side declared 
that they would not give up communion with Philip, and 
would even free him from the ban, although he should 
continue to live with Bertrada. The Pope in answer to this 


346 Crvil Rulers and the Holy See. 





wrote to Richer of Sens and the other French bishops, saying 
it was not within their power to absolve those excommunicated 
by the Holy See.” In the following year Philip despatched an 
envoy to Rome, who was to declare on oath that since the meet- 
ing at Nimes, Philip had held no unlawful intercourse with 
Bertrada. The Pope, whose suspicions were only too well 
founded, required that some of the bishops and nobles of the 
realm should come to Rome and take the same oath.’ He re- 
moved the interdict which had been pronounced by the Arch- 
bishop of Lyons, and allowed Philip again to wear the crown. 
Whether the French bishops actually came to Rome and took 
the oath is not known, but it is certain that in 1098 Philip was 
again living with Bertrada, and had broken the promises he had 
made in his submissive letters.® 

1 Chron. Malleacens. Bernoldi, Chron. a. 1096, Ep. Urbani II. ap. 
Jaffé, n. 4323, p. 475 seq. Hefele, pp. 218, 222 seq. 

2 Mansi, xx. 665. J. n. 4218, p. 467 seq. 

3 Urban. Ep. dat. Lat. viii. Kal. Maii 1097, al. 1098. J.n. 4328, cit. 

4 Ib.: ‘Ab interdictionis, quae pro hac causa in eum prolata fuerat, 
vinculo absolvyimus et utendi pro more sui regni corona auctoritatem prae- 
buimus.’ 

5 Labbé, xii. 758. 


§ 6. 


Cardinals John and Benedict, legates of the new Pope, Pas- 
chal I1., went immediately after the Synod of Valence (30th Sept. 
1100) in person to the king to induce him to leave Bertrada. 
As their mission was ineffectual, they declared at the Synod of 
Poitiers in November of the same year that Philip and Bertrada 
would be again excommunicated. The spiritual and lay followers 
of the king raised a tumult at this; but the legates and the ma- 
jority of the bishops were firm.t Ivo of Chartres, who had 
before shown himself so severe, used his influence to induce the 
Pope to show the utmost moderation possible towards the weak 
king, and to preserve the kingdom from the danger which the 
anathema would bring upon it.? Philip felt his position to be crit- 
ical, and associated his son Louis in the government, as he feared 
a revolt among his powerful vassals,® which the prevailing con- 
viction of his guilt would easily render formidable. He therefore 


The Popes and Royal Marriages. 347 





anew entered into negotiations with Pope Paschal, and obtained 
the promise of absolution under certain conditions. For this 
purpose Cardinal Richard of Albaro was sent to Fiance by the 
Pope in the spring of 1104. He convened a Synod at Troyes, 
and later, by the advice of Ivo, another at Beaugency on the 
Loire, before which Philip and Bertrada appeared in the course 
of the summer. Both pledged themselves upon the gospels to 
separate from one another, and never even to speak together, 
except in the presence of honourable witnesses, until the Pope 
should dispense them. As Cardinal Richard was not to act with- 
out the advice of the French bishops, and as they expressed no 
opinion, nothing further was done; whereupon Philip laid a 
complaint before the Pope of alleged ill-treatment, whilst Ivo, 
still inclined to clemency, thought that the absolution might have 
been granted.t Paschal II. gave authority to Bishop Lambert of 
Arras, in case Cardinal Richard had left France, to absolve 
Philip and Bertrada in presence of the other bishops, if they 
would perform satisfaction and keep their oath, and he apprised 
of it the bishops of the dioceses of Rheims, Tours, and Sens.° 
Philip and Bertrada fulfilled the required conditions before the 
end of the year at the Synod of Paris, and were received again 
into theChurch.6 They subsequently gave no cause for complaint. 
Philip died in 1108, after having, together with his son Louis, 
promised to the Pope to protect the Church against Henry V.7 
Bertrada, converted by Robert of Arbrissel, ended her days as a 
penitent in the convent of Fontevraud. | 


1 Labbé, xii. 1081. Mansi, xx. 1117 seq. Hefele, p. 234 seq. 

2 Ivo, Ep. 144 (al. 89): ‘ Nostrae suggestionis summa est, ut imbecilli- 
tati hominis amodo, quantum cum salute ejus potestis, condescendatis et 
terram, quae ejus anathemate periclitatur, ab hoc periculo eruatis.’ 

3 Daniel, Hist. de France, t. iii. pp. 398,613. Velly, Hist. de France, 
t.ii. p.425. Gosselin, p. 146. 

4 Hefele, p. 245 seq. 

5 Mansi, xx. 1015. J.n. 4462, p. 487. 

6 Pag, a. 1014, n. 4-6. 

* Suger, Vita Ludov. Grossi, p.289. Jaffé, p. 494. 


348 Civil Rulers and the Floly See. 





See 

In this long struggle we see how slow the Popes were in their 
proceedings against Philip. They appear throughout to be 
pressed on by the opinion of the best of their contemporaries and 
by their official duty. On repentance they are always ready to 
remove the ban, and the idea of a formal deposition does not seem 
to occur to them. Philip was notin open opposition to the Church ; 
he did not defy her; he even submitted himself several times after 
he had relapsed into his sin. His crime was not directly against 
religion, nor against the welfare of the Christian community, 
although it gave very bad example and much scandal ; but as he . 
never positively refused to give satisfaction to the Church, further 
proceedings were not called for, neither could much result have 
been hoped from them.! As we have seen, the excommunication 
was not immediately followed by the forfeiture of political and 
civil rights; a length of time and certain conditions must have 
intervened. It was easy for those upon whom the ban was laid, 
by negotiations and promises of obedience, to obtain a respite ; 
and as long as an amendment could be hoped for, the smoking 
flax was not to be quenched.? If the fact related by Odoricus 
Vitalis, who said that whilst Philip was excommunicated he 
never wore his diadem and held no royal feasts, is not to be taken 
quite literally,® it at least tallies with that related by Ivo, that 
at some Church festivals the bishops about the court placed, as 
usual, the crown upon the king’s head,‘ to inspire him with 
courage and confidence, whilst more zealous prelates, when he 
was in their dioceses, omitted to do so, in accordance with the 
prohibition of the Archbishop of Lyons, when Papal legate, to 
keep up communion with him.° 


1 Bianchi, t. ii. 1. v. § 9, n. 1, p. 274 seq.; n. 6, p. 283 seq. 

2 Gottfried of Venddme, Opuse. iv. (Migne, t. clvii. 220), says: ‘ Tunc 
quis a Satana circumyvenitur, quando sub specie justitiae illum per nimiam 
tristitiam perire coutingit, qui potuit liberari perindulgentiam. Praeterea 
bonus et discretus Augustinus in Ep. ad Parmen. dicit, vix aut numquam 
excommunicandum eum esse, qui in malo opere obstinatam multitudinem 
habet secum ; nam tolerabilius videtur uni parcere, ne in Ecclesia schisma 
seminetur multorum.’ Cf. ib. pp. 289, 290. 


The Popes and Royal Marriages. 349 





3 Odor. Vital. H. E. 1. viii. a. 1092: ‘Tempore Urbani et Paschalis 
RR. PP. fere quindecim annis interdictus fuit. Quo tempore numquam 
diadema portavit nec purpuram induit, neque solemnitatem aliquam regio 
more celebrayit.’ 

4 Ivo, Ep. 66, ad Lugd.; Ep. 67, ad Urban II. upon the Archbishop of 
Tours. 

5 Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 11 et 12, c. x. a. 2, t. xiii. p. 434. In Eng- 
land, under Archbishop Dunstan, King Edgar was not allowed to wear his 
crown for seven years for having dishonoured a nun. Cf. Mohler, Ges. 
Schr. i. p. 80. 


§ 8. 

Still more important were the affairs concerning the marriage 
of the French King Philip Augustus, who after the death of his 
first wife Isabella married, on the 14th August 1193, Ingeburge, 
sister of the Danish King Canute II.; but after a short time, 
having taken a dislike to her, demanded a divorce. A Synod 
held at Compiégne declared the marriage null, because Ingeburge 
was related in the fourth or fifth degree to the deceased Queen 
Isabella, and was therefore a connection of the king’s. The 
beautiful and virtuous Ingeburge, who was treated like a prisoner, 
appealed to the Holy See, where her brother Canute also lodged 
a complaint.!_ Pope Celestine, on the 13th May 1195, declared 
that the hasty divorce granted by the Synod of Compiégne was 
null,” and despatched envoys to France, who at the beginning 
of the year 1195 held a Synod at Paris, which however produced 
no result. In defiance of the Pope’s warning against contracting 
a fresh alliance Philip Augustus, in June 1196, married Agnes 
of Meron.? ‘The new Pope, Innocent III., made every effort of 
kindness to induce the misguided king to mend his ways ; he 
made him the most moving representations, and required that 
the Bishop of Paris should do the same (1198). He assured him 
of his fatherly love and his affection for France,* placed before 
him the evil he had committed in divorcing Ingeburge, and re- 
minded him that in case of the death of his son Louis, born of 
his first wife Isabella, he would be in danger of having no heir, 
since the offspring of his connection with Agnes would be ille- 
gitimate.° In September 1198 the Pope despatched Cardinal 
Petrus to repeat the former warnings, and in case of obstinacy 


350 Civil Rulers and the Holy See. 





to threaten the interdict.6 In a fresh letter he, in a paternal 
and tender manner, renewed his representations.? He approved 
the pains the legate had taken to establish a cessation of arms 
between France and England,§ and commissioned the French 
bishops and abbots® to prevail upon the king to put away Agnes 
and take back his wife; he told them how hardly it went with 
him to take measures against the king, but he was determined 
at all costs to execute his stern duty, more especially as Philip’s 
bad example was inducing other rulers, for instance, the Duke 
of Bohemia, likewise to violate the sanctity of marriage. In 
conclusion he desired them to obey the sentence that would be 
pronounced by his legate. 


1 Mansi, xxii. 667,671. GestaInnoc. III. n. 48 seq. p.93 seq. Migne, 
t. cexiv. Hurter, Innoc. III. vol. i. p. 168 seq. Hefele, v. p. 668 seq. 

2 Jaffé, Reg. n. 10,531-10,533, p. 901. 

8 Gesta Innoc. l.c. n. 50, p.96. Innoe. 1.i. Ep. 171 (Migne, l.c. p. 149). 
Hefele, l.c. ; 

+ Innoc. III. 1. i. Ep. 171, p. 148: ‘ Licet dextera Domini suam fecerit 
in nostra promotione virtutem, de terra suscitans inopem et de stercore 
erigens pauperem, et illud nos voluerit dignitatis solium obtinere, ut non 
solum cum principibus, sed de principibus etiam judicemus, cum tamen con- 
ditionem humilitatis nostrae conspicimus et de quo ad quid simus vocati, 
pensamus, praeter generale debitum pastoralis officii, quod singulis nos 
constituit debitores, tibi et,regno tuo specialiter nos fatemur teneri, in quo 
nos recolimus in studiis literarum aetatem transegisse minorem ac divino 
munere quantaecunque scientiae donum adeptos beneficiorum impensam 
multiplicem suscepisse. Ad cumulum autem hujus praecipuae dilectionis 
accedit progenitorum tuorum grata memoria’ &c. 

5 Innoc. 1. i. Ep. 4, ad Paris. Ep. pp. 3-5. 

6 Vide letter to the legate, 1. i. Ep. 347, pp. 320, 321: ‘Ita quod 
praeter baptisma parvulorum et poenitentias morientium nullum divinum 
officium celebretur.’ Cf. Ep. 345, 346, p. 319 seq. 

7 L. i. Ep. 348, 355, pp. 321, 329. 

8 L. ii. Ep. 23, p. 552; Ep. 24, ad Phil. Reg. p. 533. 

® L. ii. Ep. 197, p. 745 seq. 


§ 9. 

In the mean time Cardinal Petrus had left no stone unturned 
to induce the king to renounce his connection with Agnes of 
Meron, but in vain. He therefore convened in 1199 the great 
Synod of Dijon, in which the subject of the interdict now to be 
proclaimed was discussed for seven days. ‘The king sent a de- 


The Popes and Royal Marriages. 351 





puty with an appeal to the Pope himself, hoping thereby to 
postpone the interdict ; but this did not mislead the legate, who 
having convened a fresh Synod at Vienne on the 14th January 
1200, in the Pope’s name proclaimed the interdict, of which a 
communication was made to all the French bishops.!. Many of 
these begged permission to postpone the execution of the sen- 
tence, but the Pope refused their request ; and all then rendered 
obedience, with the exception of Bishop Hugo of Auxerre. The 
king was furious against the faithful hierarchy, ill-treated and 
banished many of the prelates, and testified extreme exasperation. 
He said he envied Saladin, who had no Pope to deal with. But the 
calm firmness of the Pope, the courage displayed by the bishops, 
even by the once time-serving William of Rheims, uncle of the 
king, and the fear of further measures on the part of the Pope, 
obliged him to enter into negotiations, and give assurance of his 
submission.? Innocent despatched as cardinal legate Octavius 
of Ostia, a relation of the king, with powers to remove the in- 
terdict if Philip Augustus would make good the injuries he had 
done to many of the prelates, would put away Agnes of Meron, 
and reinstate Ingeburge as his lawful wife; if in every way 
things were restored to what they had been, the Pope would, if 
the king demanded it, cause the validity of his first marriage to 
be investigated. He informed the divorced queen of what he 
had done for her, and bade her continue her prayers ;3 he called 
upon her brother in Denmark to send competent witnesses and 
advocates, that the divorce pronounced by the French bishops 
might be annulled on the ground of non-observance of justice.4 
The Cardinal of Ostia was received honourably in France.5 The 
bishops consulted with him, the king went out to meet him, and 
declared himself willing to make atonement. He indemnified 
the priests whom he had injured, promised to see Agnes no more 
until the question of the divorce from Ingeburge had been de- 
cided, and in the mean time to treat the latter as queen. On 
this the interdict was removed, the 7th September 1200. But 
the king persisted in desiring a divorce from Ingeburge on the 
ground of kinship, and demanded a fresh trial; this the legate 
appointed to be held at a Synod at Soissons, to take place after 


352 Civil Rulers and the Holy See. 





a delay of six months, six weeks, and six days.’ Innocent re- 
joiced at the course of events, but desired that his instructions 
should be executed with even more exactness. Ingeburge had 
been solemnly acknowledged queen, but had shortly afterwards 
been once more treated asa prisoner, and was not prayed for by 
name in the king’s chapel. Innocent required that she should 
- be restored to complete freedom,’ and reminded the king, who 
complained of too great severity on the part of the legate,® that 
he was bound to render him obedience, that the legate had put 
upon him no undue constraint, but had only fulfilled the require- 
ments of justice, and had made use of the fitting remedy.!? 
Another matter in which the Pope’s instructions had not been 
accurately followed was that Agnes had not been removed from 
France, but only from the king’s immediate neighbourhood; 
her approaching confinement was given in justification of this.1! 
The Pope removed the interdict from the disobedient Bishop 
of Auxerre, but rejected his appointment to the archbishopric 
of Sens.!? 


1 Mansi, xxii. 707 seq. Gesta Innoc. n. 51, 52, p.97 seq. Hefele, 
p- 705. 

2 Hefele, p. 706. 

3 Innoc. 1. iii. Ep. 11, pp. 881-883. 

4 Tb. Ep. 12, pp. 883-884. 

5 Bishop Odo of Paris and Bishop Nivelo of Soissons extol him in 
their letters to the Pope. Innoc. 1. iii. Ep. 13, 14, pp. 884-887. 

6 Report of the legate to the Pope, 1. iii. Ep. 15, p. 887 seq. 

7 Mansi, l.c. p. 721. Hefele, pp. 706, 707. 

8 L. iii. Ep. 16, pp. 891-895. 

9 Ib. Ep. 17, pp. 895, 896. 

10 Tb. Ep. 18, pp. 896-898. 

11 Hefele, p. 707. 

12 J, iii. Ep. 20, pp. 898-899. 


§ 10. 


At the Synod of Soissons, opened on the 2d March 1201, 
were present the king, followed by many lawyers, and Inge- 
burge, supported by the delegates of her brother. The Danish 
envoys mistrusted the legate and appealed to the Pope himself; 
and in spite of all entreaties to await the arrival of Cardinal 
John of Paul, commissioned especially by the Pope for the 


The Popes and Royal Marriages. o55 





Synod, they set forth at/once upon their journey. Three days 
later the cardinal arrived, and for the space oftwo weeks the 
marriage of Philip Augustus and Ingeburge was treated of. 
The king anticipated the judgment of the cardinal, saying that 
he recognised Ingeburge as his wife, and would part from her 
no more. He took her from the convent where she was stay- 
ing, and with her hastened from Soissons. The Synod was 
thereupon dissolved, as the crafty king desired. Ingeburge 
was again kept as a prisoner and not treated like the king’s 
wife, although in the same year Agnes, her rival, died. The 
two children Agnes had borne to the king were declared legi- 
timate by the Pope, because the king had married her in good 
faith after the decision of the bishops at Compitgne.! The 
Pope was much blamed for too great indulgence towards the 
king, who, on the other hand, complained of his severity. 
Innocent strove to convince him how little ground he had for 
such a complaint by referring him to former examples, assuring 
him that he could not, by deviating from the right path, offend 
a Heavenly King for the sake of an earthly one.? 


1 Hefele, pp. 707, 708. 
_ 2 Innoe. III. 1. v. Ep. 50, pp. 1015-1018. 


Nous 


The oppressed queen, in 1203, had recourse once more to 
the Pope, as ‘ Vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter—as 
the colleague of St. Paul, who had not feared to slay the inces- 
tuous Corinthian with the sword of the Spirit—as the zealous 
imitator of Phinees—as the mountain to which all must lift 
their eyes, the protector of the oppressed, the refuge of the un- 
fortunate.’ She laid her wrongs before him, and besought him 
to obtain for her release and justice.t Innocent III. sent re- 
peated and most pressing letters to the king concerning the 
queen’s hard lot, endeavouring also to influence him through 
his envoys.? In 1205 he wrote to console the queen,’ but did 
not conceal from her that up to that time his efforts to move 
her husband had been fruitless ; the latter not only persisted in 


demanding a divorce on account of relationship, but also be- 
VOL, I. AA 


35% Civil Rulers and the Holy See. 





cause he said he was prevented by witchcraft (maleficium) from 
approaching her. In 1207, Innocent endeavoured anew to in- 
duce Philip to take her back, or at any rate to cause her to re- 
ceive better treatment ;4 and soon after the king informed him that 
he would endeavour to live with her in wedlock, but that if he 
did not succeed this endeavour was not to prejudice his suit for 
divorce. The Pope agreed,5 and in 1208 deputed Cardinal 
Gualdi for further negotiations.6 Philip Augustus laid betore 
the cardinal a third reason for divorce—that his marriage with 
Ingeburge had never been consummated, and that she wished 
to become a nun (for a declaration to this effect had been forced 
from the imprisoned queen), and that therefore his marriage- 
bonds might be loosed. He begged that the Pope? would with- 
out any further appeal empower his legate to dissolve the mar- 
riage, whether it were on account of the alleged witchcraft, or 
on account of Ingeburge’s desire for a religious profession, or 
for any other canonical reason ; he was ready to swear that the 
marriage had never been consummated. Innocent replied in 
two letters: in the shorter of the two he recommended him to 
desist from his plan of getting a divorce, and to take back Inge- 
burge ; in the other and longer letter he pointed out to him 
that his case, as now represented, did not correspond with for- 
mer statements. He laid stress upon Ingeburge’s assertion that 
she had lived with him as his wife, and that Philip Augustus had 
admitted having at least endeavoured to behave to her as such, 
Her resolution to enter the cloister was not freely made, but 
was the result of an imprisonment that had lasted eight years, 
and was accepted by her as affording a prospect of more happi- 
ness ; for the rest, he authorised the legate to institute further 
judicial inquiries. In the mean time the only change was that 
Ingeburge was treated in a more becoming fashion. The state- 
ment that the marriage had never been consummated was a 
matter of grave doubt. Finally, Ingeburge was induced to re- 
move the doubt by a declaration made before two creditable 
witnesses. Then the king had again recourse to the Holy 
See.9 But the Pope, having consoled Ingeburge, anew declared 
in 1212 that, after mature deliberation upon the subject, he 


The Popes and Royal Marriages. 355 





could not dissolve the king’s marriage, and entreated Philip 
Augustus not to weary him with fresh solicitations concerning 
it.1° In the following year the king effected a honest recon- 
ciliation with Ingeburge, and continued to live with her in har- 
mony. In his will he openly testified to the esteem in which 
he held her. Thus the firmness of the Pope obtained at length 
the victory.) 

1 L. vi. Ep. 85. Migne, cexv. pp. 86-88. 
L. vi. Ep. 86, 182, pp. 88 seq. 198 seq. Hefele, p. 768. 
L. viii. Ep. 113, p. 680. 
L. x. Ep. 42, pp. 1135, 1136. 
L. x. Ep. 176, p. 1266. 
L. xi. Ep. 86, p. 1403. 
L. xi. Ep. 180, p. 1493. 
’ L. xi. Ep. 181-183, pp. 1494-1499. 
® Hefele, p. 770. 
10 T, xv. Ep. 106, 107, pp. 617, 618. 
11 Hurter, Innoc. IIT. vol. ii. p.477 seq. Hefele, l.c. 


§ 12. 


In the same pontificate there were several other cases of 
important suits concerning the marriages of princes. When the 
King of Leon incestuously married the daughter of the King of 
Portugal, Pope Celestine IIT. excommunicated the latter as well 
as the married pair, and laid their dominions under an interdict. 
This connection was in consequence abandoned. But then the 
king married his own niece, the daughter of the King of Cas- 
tile. Innocent III. despatched the legate Rainer to Spain,} 
who repeatedly but ineffectually admonished the king to dis- 
solve the union. He appointed time and place, awaited him 
beyond the designated period, and then, as all was of no avail, 
finally laid upon him the ban, and the interdict upon the coun- 
try. He took no measures against the King of Castile, who 
did not resist the Papal ordinances, and was willing, on the 
contrary, to receive his daughter back again. Then the Arch- 
bishop of Toledo and the Bishop of Valencia appeared at the 
chair of the Apostles on the part of the King of Castile, and 
the Bishop of Zamola on the part of the King of Leon, to re- 
quest a dispensation for the King of Leon and the Princess of 


356 Civel Rulers and the Holy See. 





Castile? As their request, according to the strict practice of 
that day, was not granted them, they besought that the inter- 
dict might be removed, since it exposed the kingdom to a three- 
fold danger—from heretics, from Saracens, and also from Chris- 
tians.2 The Pope, whilst fully estimating the evils represented 
to him, thought it not fitting to reverse a canonical sentence 
until due satisfaction was made.# He was unwilling to make 
so great a deviation from the letter of the law; he did not 
wish to appear to act with partiality, and suffer a bad ex- 
ample to be given to other countries. He allowed a partial 
mitigation, because where many participate in the punishment 
its severity may be relaxed, so as by clemency to avert greater 
evils,5 and he partially limited the interdict in order to prove 
spirits, and to see whether the consequence he anticipated would 
arise.6 Divine worship was once more permitted,? and later 
Innocent III. gave permission for sermons to be preached.® (In 
general, from his time forward the interdict was much mitigated.) 
Still, however, no Mass could be solemnised in the presence of 
the excommunicated pair or of their counsellors. In the mean 
time it appeared that the King of Castile had made only a 
feigned submission. The kingdom of Leon had been forced to 
do allegiance to the son of this incestuous marriage, and the 
king of that country was loth to renounce the towns he had 
received in dowry with his wife. But in 1204 the Princess of 
Castile submitted herself to the Church, left the King of Leon, 
and applied for absolution; soon after her example was fol- 
lowed by the king, and the only matter then remaining for 
settlement: was the restitution of the places received in dowry. 
The bishops were empowered to confer the absolution ; and 
thus in this case as well as in the last the interdict fultilled its 
purpose. 1° 


1 Innoc. III. 1.1. Ep. 92, 93, 125. 

2 Innoc. III. 1. ii. Ep. 75, p. 610 seq., to the Archbishop of Compostella, 
where the event is narrated in detail. 

3 L.c. p. 626: ‘Asse:entes, quod ex eo triplex toti regno periculum ab 
haereticis, Saracenis et Christianis etiam imminebat. 1. Ab haereticis: 
quia cum per interdictum ipsum clausa essent in partibus illis ora pastorum, 
non poterant fideles per eos contra haereticos instrui et ad resistendum eis 


The Popes and Royal Marriages. 367 





aliquatenus informari, unde cum ex hoc tum quia rex Leg. ab Ecclesia se 
asserens aggravatum eis minime resistebat, invalescebant contra fideles 
haeretici et in regno ipsi haereses variae pullulabant. 2. A Saracenis: 
quoniam cum per extortationes et remissiones Keclesiae Hispaniarum 
populus consuevisset ad expugnationem paganorum induci, cessante prae- 
dicatorum officio, populi etiam devotio tepescebat, quia cum se cum prin- 
cipe suo, quoad interdictum, eidem videret poenae subjectum, a culpa, cui 
vel tacendo consenserat, forte non se credebat immunem, propter quod 
minus circa debellationem Saracenorum fervebat, ne decederet in peccato. 
3. A Catholicis : quia cum clerici laicis spiritualia ministrare non possent, 
laici clericis temporalia subtrahebant, oblationes, primitias et decimas 
detinentes ; unde cum clerici pro majore parte in partibus illis consueverint 
sustentari, eis subtractis non solum mendicare, sed fodere et servire Judaeis 
in Ecclesiae et totius christianitatis opprobrium cogebantur.’ 

4 The Pcpe proves it thus: ‘Hx animo quidem, quia sicut Deus per- 
hibet testimonium conscientiae nostrae, ad hoc nonnisi justitiae et hones- 
tatis obtentu processimus, cum ex contrario potius contra nos oriri prae- 
sumptio potuisset, si tam detestabile facinus duxissemus in patientia 
tolerandum. Lz ordine, quia dictus frater R. post commonitiones et dila- 
tiones legitimas tandem districtione percussit ecclesiastica contumacem. 
Ex causa: exemplo divino et humano. Divino, quia cum David in populi 
numeratione peccasset, Dominus in populum vasa sui furoris effudit, unde 
idem David dixisse legitur peccatum suum Domino confitendo: Ego sum 
qui peccavi.... isti, qui oves sunt, quid fecerunt? Auferatur, obsecro, 
facies tua, Domine a populo tuo (2 Reg. xxiv.17); humano: cum jamdiu 
praedecessor noster in praedictos Portugalliae et Legionis reges et regna 

‘ipsorum praedictas sententias curaverit promulgare.’ 

5 Quia ubi multitudo est in causa, detrahendum est aliquid severitati, 
ut majoribus malis sanandis charitas sincera subveniat. 

® Relaxavimus ergo, non in totum, sed in una parte solummodo inter- 
dictum, nec perpetuo, sed ad tempus, quamdiu sc. nobis placuerit et vide- 
rimus expedire. 

7 Ut in regno ipso divina celebrentur officia. Only religious burial 
(that is, the customary funeral rites) was not allowed. Well might this 
appear ‘absonum,’ the Pope says. But the Conc. Later. iii. c. 20, or- 
dains that those who are killed in tournaments should be denied Chris- 
tian burial, even if by repentance they have made their peace with the 
Church ; and in this manner the mourning of the Church found special 
expression. 

* C. 43, Responso, v. 39, de Sent. Excom. 

9 L. vi. Ep. 80, ad Reg. Castil. p. 82. 

10 T,, vii. Ep. 93, 94, pp. 373-376. 


358 Civil Rulers and the Floly See. 


J 





Part Il, Tue PRINCES RECOGNISED ECCLESIASTICAL 
JURISDICTION. 

§ 1. The right of censure over them gradually reserved for the Pope. 
§ 2. Recognition of Papal authority. § 3. Titles of honour and inter- 
cession with the Popes. § 4-7. Letters of princes. § 8. The Pope 
as protector of kingdoms. § 9. Papal ratifications of treaties, laws, 
donations, &c. § 10. Louis IX. of France. § 11. Resistance of in- 
dividual princes. §12. Their superiority to all laws. § 13. Ignorance 
of princes was not fostered by the Church. 


$4. 

The princes recognised that they were subject to the juris- 
diction of the Church. Charles the Bald, at the meeting at 
Savonniéres in 859, declared in the statement of grievances 
against Archbishop Wenilo of Sens, that as a crowned king he 
could be deprived of his kingdom by no one, at least not before 
the bishops had been heard on the question and had passed sen- 
tence ; for by them he had been crowned, and to their paternal 
correction and chastisements he was willing to submit.! In the 
reign of his father Louis the Pious the conviction prevailed that 
the king could only be deposed by the sentence of the bishops,? 
and in the dissensions of his sons the authority of the Church 
was the strongest weapon each could use against his rival. The 
bishops who had called the war of Louis and Charles against 
their brother the Emperor Lothair I. a righteous war declared 
at a Synod at Aix-la-Chapelle in 842, that Lothair had forfeited 
the kingdom by his sins, and that God had given it to his bro- 
thers. These were, however, called upon, before undertaking 
the actual government of his States, to swear that their govern- 
ment should not be arbitrary, but regulated by the will of God.’ 
This view of the power of the bishops was important in so many 
ways, that later French historians hit on the notion that the sub- 
jection of kings to ecclesiastical authority was an error intro- 
duced into France by the policy of Pipin and his successors, with 
the view of enhancing their authority in the eyes of the people 
by giving it a sacred character. When, after the death of Lothair 
II. in 869, the claim of his brother the Emperor Louis II. to 
his possessions was disregarded by Louis the German and 


Recogurtion of Papal Supremacy. 359 





Charles the Bald, Louis II. appealed to the intervention of 
Pope Hadrian IL, who gave a decision in his favour, which, 
however, was not acted upon. 

This principle continued in full force. The terms in which 
Fulco of Rheims, in 898, endeavoured to withdraw Charles the 
Simple from the proposed alliance with the Normans® presup- 
posed an ecclesiastical authority not merely to excommunicate 
the king, but to withdraw from him the allegiance of his sub- 
jects.7 Rulers, however, sought more and more to withdraw their 
dominions from the penal jurisdiction of the bishops, who had 
several times inflicted censures which were unjust, and which 
the Pope had reversed.8 And thus it came about that the right 
to excommunicate kings and princes was reserved to the Pope.® 


1 Libell. Proclamationis. Hard. Conc. v. 488. Hefele, iv. p. 197. 

2 Hefele, iv. pp. 78, 79. 

3 Nithard, de Dissensionibus Filiorum Ludovici Pii, 1. iii. iv. Pertz, 
M. G. ii. 6, 62, 668. Cf. Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. t. x.1. xlviii. n. 11; 1. xlix. 
n. 46; Hefele, l.c. pp. 98, 99. 

4 Moreau, Discours sur l’Histoire de France, t. ii. pp. 22,30. Daniel, 
Hist. de France, t. ii. pp. 335, 388, 393. Garnier, Hist. de France, t. 
xxi. p. 189. Fleury, lc. 1. xlix. n. 46; t. xiii. disc. 3, n. 10, 

5 Baron. a. 869, n. 93 seq. 

6 Flodoard, Hist. Rhems. 1. iv. c. v. 

7 Contra Bossuet. Defens. P. i. 1. ii. p. 285 seq. Vide Bianchi, t. ii. 
1. iv. § 9, n. 5, p. 122 seq. 

8 £.g. Innocent III. (1. xii. Ep. 37, p. 46), that of the Bishop of Sois- 
sons. 

® Kober, der Kirchenbann, pp. 122, 123. Schmalzgrueber, in 1. v. De- 
cret. tit. 39, § 1, n. 40, who cites for this Avila, Palao, Reiffenstuel, Wiest- 
ner, La Croix. At first the Popes granted to individual princes particular 
privileges, that they and their lands should not be visited by ban or in- 
terdict ‘ absque rationabili et manifesta causa,’ or that it should be only 
after previous admonition, and that when they had appealed to Rome any 
sentence delivered against them should be null; e.g. Innocent III. to the 
Landgrave of Thuringia (1. vi. Ep. 42, p. 46), and to the Emperor Henry 
of Constantinople (1. xi. Ep. 120, pp. 1216, 1217). The Popes then granted 
to individual princes the privilege of not being visited with censure by the 
bishop or Papal legate, which was in practice and in the teaching of 
canonists extended to all reigning princes. A privilege of the latter kind 
was conferred by Urban II. upon King Peter I. of Aragon, 1095; it was 
confirmed by Innocent III. in 1213 (1. xvi. Ep. 87, p. 888). This Pope in 
1214 forbad that King John of England, who had become his vassal, should 
be censured ‘sine speciali mandato Sedes apostolicae’ (Supplem. Ep. 185, 
Migne, ccxvii. p. 226). 


360 Civil Rulers and the Holy See. 





§ 2. 

The words of Constantine the Great, related by Rufinus, were 
often repeated ; he had said he did not wish to pass judgment on 
bishops, because they had authority to judge him.! Familiar also 
was the readiness with which the Emperor Theodosius had sub- 
mitted to the judgment of St. Ambrose.?, Henry IV. of Germany 
acknowledged that he might be deposed by the Church for heresy 
or apostasy.? Even Frederick Barbarossa admitted the right of 
the bishops to judge him,* although at Pavia in 1160, appealing 
to the example of Constantine, Theodosius, and Justinian, he 
claimed the right of convening a General Council. The French 
King Louis VI., in 1119, laid his complaints and grievances 
against Henry I. of England, before Pope Callixtus II. at the 
Council of Rheims. Henry’s nephew Stephen of Blois begged 
Innocent III. to ratify his ascent of the throne; later he was 
forced to undergo many humiliations from the bishops on account 
of unjust actions committed by him against the Church.6 Queen 
Maria of Aragon laid a complaint before Pope Innocent III.7 
against the Count Montpellier, for having retained some castles 
and places belonging to her dowry. The count, on the other 
hand, complained that she had taken possession of his domi- 
nions.® The Counts of Flanders repeatedly sought protection in 
Rome against the superior strength of the French king; on 
December 29, 1299, the Flemish envoys called the Pope uni- 
versal judge in things spiritual and temporal, by reason of his 
position as Vicar of Christ, and of his authority over the emperor, 
the foremost among civil princes.9 The famous Abbot Wibkald, 
for many years adviser of the Kings of Germany, who restrained 
Henry son of Conrad III. from hasty measures against Papal 
decrees,!° wrote thus in 1148 to Pope Eugenius III.: ‘ With 
you is the manna, with you is the rod (of Aaron), with you is 
canonical dispensation, with you is the interpretation of laws, 
with you is the moderation of rules, with you is wine and oil; 
it is your privilege to spare the submissive and to resist the 
proud,’ 


1 Rufin. H. E. i. 2: ‘Deus vos constituit sacerdotes et potestatem: 
dedit de nobis quoque judicandi, et ideo nos a vobis recte judicamur, vos. 


Recognition of Papal Supremacy. 261 





autem non potestis ab hominibus judicari. . . Vos etenim a Deo nobis dati 
estis Dii et conveniens non est ut homo judicet Deos, sed ille solus, de 
quo scriptum est: Deus stetit in synagoga Deorum, in medio autem Deos 
dijudicat.” Cf. Soz. H. E. v.17; Gelas. Cyzicen, Hist. Conc. Nic. 1. ii. 
c. viii. (Migne, PP. gr. lxxxy. p. 1244). In the epistle from Constantine 
to the bishops concerning the Donatists, in the Append. ad Optat. Milevit. 
ed. Paris, Labbé, Cone. i. p. 1455, ed. Ven., it is said: ‘ Dico enim, ut se 
veritas habet, sacerdotum judicium ita debet haberi, ac si ipse Dominus 
residens judicet.’ 

2 Joh. Saresbur. Polycrat. 1. iv. ¢. vi. p. 524. 

3 Mansi, xx. p. 472 seq.: ‘Nec pro aliquo crimine nisi ab fide, quod 
absit, exorbitaverim, deponendum.’ Cf. Baron. a. 1076, n. 20; Fleury, 
Hist. Eccl. t. xiii. 1. lxiii. n. 52; Launojus, de Simonia, Observ. 3, 4, 5, 
DV Oppato Ps 1. 

4 Radevice. l. ii. c. lxviii.: ‘Deus constituit vos sacerdotes et potestatem 
vobis dedit de nobis quoque judicandi.’ 

5 Hefele, Conc. v. p. 315. 

® Tb. l.c. pp. 386, 394 seq. 435 seq. 

7 Innoe. III. 1. xvi. Ep. 23, pp. 814, 815. 

8 Ib. 1. xv. Ep. 104, p. 615. 

® Kervyn de Lettenhove, Histoire de Flandre, 1847, t. ii. pp. 421, 
604 seq. 

10 Wibald, Ep. 73 (Migne, elxxxix. p. 1173), to Henry: ‘ Timemus nam- 
que, ne in Romanam Kcclesiam aliquorum suggestione impingatis, quod 
vobis esse posset lapis offensionis et petra scandali.’ Ep. 79, p. 1178, to 
his sister: ‘Juniorem dominum regem nostrum quaedam non exiles per- 
sonae ad haec dedita opera impellebant, ut in quibusdam dominum Papam 
offenderet et canonicis decretis contrairet, quod ne fieret, Dei largissima 
bonitate et nostro studio praeventum est et in meliorem statum omnia 
commutata.’ 

1! Novit dextera vestra ‘ parcere subjectis et debellare superbos’ (Virgil, 
Aen. vi. 853). Wibald, Ep. 114, p. 1209. 


Bs 


Usurpers often sought to make their position more secure by 
means of the Pope’s authority ; the usurper Suerus did this in 
Norway by appealing to a counterfeit Bull of Celestine III. In- 
nocent III. reproved him sharply; but after his death acknow- 
ledged his son, who wasa much better man.! Rightful princes 
frequently besought the Popes for special titles of honour;2*even 
Henry VIII. applied for one, and received the title of ‘ Defender 
of the Faith ;% and later still the King of Portugal received that 
of ‘Most faithful King.’* At an earlier period, Charles the 
Bald, and after him his son Louis, received from John VIII. the 


362 Civil Rulers and the Holy See. 





title and dignity of ‘ privy councillor,” conferred also at that time 
upon bishops. Kings and princes often besought pious and in- 
fluential members of the regular clergy to be their mediators with 
the Holy See, as, for example, King Alphonso of Spain® besought 
the Abbot of Clugni, Peter the Venerable. In 1142, St. Ber- 
nard complained to Louis VII. that he had busied himself about 
the king’s affairs with the Holy See until he had almost done 
violence to his conscience and incurred the just anger of the 
Pope, and that now the king’s continual excesses led him to 
repent of what he had done.? 


1 Innoe. III. 1. i. Ep. 382-384, p. 362 seq. Supplem. Ep. 11 (Migne, 
ecxvii. p. 36). Cf. 1. vi. Ep. 214, p. 241 seq. ; Gesta Innoc. n. 59, p. eviii. 
seq. 
2 The most ancient of these titles is undoubtedly that of the kings of 
France, ‘ Rex Christianissimus.’ 

3 Pallavic. Hist. Conc. Trid. 1. ii. c.i.n.8. Rymer, Foed. xiii. 756. 
Cf. xiv. 13, Conc. M. Brit. iii. 693, 702; Gieseler, Kirchengeschichte, iii. 
ii. p. 3. No. 4. 

4 Bened. XIV. Const. Maxima, 23 Dec. 1748. 

5 John VIII. Ep. 87, ad Ludoy. Balbum : ‘Te quoque, carissime fili ad 
vicem genitoris vestri D. Caroli perpetui Imperatoris Augusti, a secretis 
constituo meum consiliarium.’ Cf, Thomassin, p. i. 1. ii. c. ci. n. 15. 

6 Petrus Vener. 1. iv. Ep. 9, pp. 313, 314, ad Innocent II. : ‘ Imperator 
Hispanus, magnus Christiani populi princeps,...licet apud pietatem 
vestram multum possit et posse debeat, tamen quia inter modernos reges 
praecipuus amicus et benefactor Cluniacensis ecclesiae est, me ad praesens 
mediatorem et apud vos intercessorem elegit.’ The same abbot also inter- 
ceded for King Louis of France and for the town of Pisa (ib. Ep. 3, p. 304; 
Ep. 44, p. 462). 

7 Bern. Ep. 221, c. iii. p. 387, ed: Migne. Cf. Ep. 224, c.i. p. 392, ad 
Steph. Ep. Praenest. 


§ 4. 

The letters sent to the Pope from even the most powerful 
princes testify the esteem in which they held the dignity and 
power of the Holy See. Ferdinand, King of Spain, when he 
declared in favour of Alexander III. against the Antipope set 
up by Barbarossa, informed the Pope of his adherence in these 
words: ‘I have recognised your dominion with my whole king- 
dom.! It was the custom in letters of congratulation sent to a 
new Pope on his accession to lay all the most important affairs 
of Christendom on his heart.? Otho of Brunswick,? elected 


Recognition of Papal Supremacy. 363 





King of Germany, expresses a special loyalty in his letters, as was 
the case also in those of the princes and nobles who interceded 
for him with Pope Innocent III.4 They extolled the jus- 
tice and wisdom of the Holy See, which Otho’s rival, Philip,’ 
also did in 1207, when he petitioned for the promotion of the 
Danish Bishop Waldemar® to the see of Bremen. Whether 
the decrees published by the General Councils of the Lateran 
and of Lyons had or had not the influence which some authors 
have ascribed to them,’ the recognition they met with shows the 
conviction entertained by the most powerful princes of the day 
of the predominant authority of the Church. 


1 «Vestrum cum toto regno meo suscepi dominium’ (Migne, PP. Lat. 
t. ec. p. 1370, n. z.). 

2 Vide the formula of Petr. Bles. Ep. 118 (Migne, ccvii. pp. 463, 
464). 

3 Innoc. III. Reg. iii. p. 999 ; Ep. 19, p. 1016, in which he venerates 
che Pope as father and lord; Ep. 20, p. 1016 seq.; Ep. 53, 54, 81, 106, 
p. 1054 seq. 1087 seq. 1108; Ep. 77, 187, 189, 190, p. 1084 seq. 1167 
seq. 

4 King Richard of England engages for him: ‘Quod vobis tamquam 
unico domino suo et Ecclesiae Rom. debitam et juratam fidelitatem im- 
pendet’ (Reg. Ep. 4, p. 1000 seq. Cf. Ep. 5-10, p. 1001 seq.). 

_ > Innoe, III. 1. x. Ep. 215, p. 1823: ‘Cum plene cuilibet constare pos- 
sit, quod ab illo fonte, in quo totius spiritualis juris et ecclesiastici pleni- 
tudo consistit, nihil aliud procedere possit vel abinde derivari, nisi quod 
sanctum sit et quod contineat aequitatem, semper hoc inde sperandum est, 
per quod unicuique consulatur, conservata tamen huic fonti totius suae 
auctoritatis integritate.’ 

6 This Bishop Waldemar had been imprisoned on account of a con- 
spiracy in Denmark, was at length, upon the Pope’s remonstrance, sent 
to Rome, but on departing thence without leave was excommunicated 
and deprived of his see. Innoc. III. 1. vi. Ep. 181, p. 194 seq.; 1. viii. 
Ep. 192, 193, p. 768 seq. (respectful letter of the King of Denmark to the 
Pope and the Pope’s answer) ; 1.x. Ep. 41, p. 1184; 1. xi. Ep. 10, p. 13463 
1, xii. Ep. 63, p. 69 seq. : 

7 Cf. supra, Essay vi. § 15, 16 seq. 


§ 5. 

When Henry II. was persecuting St. Thomas of Canterbury, 
there was much anger at the court of France, because of the ap- 
parent delay of Pope Alexander III. in coming to the assistance 
of the archbishop, and using his authority against the king. The 
nobles and clergy sent letters of remonstrance to the Holy See,} 


364 Civil Rulers and the Holy See. 





and King Louis VII.? and his queen? also wrote to the Pope on 
the subject. After the murder ofthe archbishop, Louis required 
that severe measures should be taken against Henry. And later 
he demanded of the Pope a reform of existing abuses, according 
to the authority confided to him, by virtue of which he was set 
as a light for the nations, above all men, high and low, that 
everywhere he might punish evildoers. ‘For your Holiness, to 
whom so great a power of action is given, can carry out your 
pious intentions. For who believeth not your testimony? Who 
hearkeneth not to your word? Who submitteth not to your 
command? Ifany venture to resist you, let only the high praises 
of God and words of power be in your mouth, to execute ven- 
geance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people ; to 
bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron 
(Psalm exlix. 7, 8).’> Louis VII. agreed with John of Salisbury® 
in believing that the Pope was entitled and empowered to chastise 
all crimes in princes, and to free the Church of them, if their 
yoke oppressed her; he was firmly convinced that his kingly 
office obliged him to use the sword contided to him by God, for 
the defence of the Church and the overthrow of her oppressors.? 


1 John of Salisbury, who was at that time living in France, Ep. 198, 
ad Alex. III. (Migne, excix. p. 218): ‘ Utinam essent aures vestrae ad ora 
regis et optimatum Franciae! Utinam audiretis, quomodo vobis insultant 
hostes Ecclesiae et fere universi detrahunt vobis!’ William of Chartres 
wrote to the Pope (Migne, cc. p. 1409, n. 50): ‘ Exspectat christianissi- 
mus rex Francorum, exspectant Ecclesiae et optimates regni, quam opem 
adyersus tyrannum saevientem feretis Archiepiscopo pro justitia exulanti.’ 
Philip, Count of Flanders, wrote (ib. p. 1393, n. 36): ‘ Exsurgatis in 
ira vestra et inimicos Ecclesiae debellate, et sic erit Deus vobiscum.’ 

2 Migne, t. cc. p. 1376, n. 17. The king, moreover, says: ‘ Non est 
nostrum, vos, qui dominus estis, reprehendere.’ 

3 Ib. p. 1380, n. 22. Here it is said: ‘Vobis sicut patri loquar et 
domino, cujus honorem dominus meus rex et ego et totum regnum nostrum 
desideramus ut proprium.’ The letter does not merely complain that the 
Pope lends insufficient protection to the archbishop, but also that the King 
of England receives ‘auctoritatem impune peccandi et archiepiscopum 
perpetuo proscribendi.’ 

4 Ib. p. 1378, n. 20: ‘ Excitetur exquisitae genus justitiae, denudetur 
gladius Petri in ultionem Cantuarensis martyris, quia sanguis ejus pro 
universali clamat Ecclesia, non tam sibi quam universae Ecclesiae con- 
querens de vindicta.’ 


Recognition of Papal Supremacy. 365 





5 Ib. pp. 1378, 1379, n. 21: ‘ Profecto supernus ille mortalitatis nostrae 
moderator et arbiter ideo vos in diem hance sic, ut confidimus, reservavit, 
ut accepto tempore justitias judicetis et ponatis prava in directa et aspera 
in vias planas (Lue. iii. 5)... . Date simul et vos voci vestrae vocem vir- 
tutis, ut audiant et intelligant universi, quod posuerit vos Dominus in 
lucem gentium, ut sitis salus ejus usque ad fines terrae (Isai. xlix. 6). 
Praesto est enim piae intentioni vestrae operandi facultas, cui tanta con- 
ceditur sanctae operationis auctoritas. ... Quis enim non credit auditui 
vestro? Quis non obedit verbo? Quis non obtemperat jussioni? Quod 
etsi reluctari quispiam pro sua malignitate praesumpserit, sonent exrsulta- 
tiones (al. exaltationes) Dei in faucibus vestris ad faciendam vindictam in 
nationibus, increpationes in populis, ad alligandos reges eorum in compe- 
dibus et nobiles eorum in manicis ferreis.’ St. Bernard also applies this 
passage to the Pope. 

® Joh. Saresb Ep. 201, p. 224, ad Albert. Card. : ‘Si Ecclesia Romana 
voluerit et de Domino non diffidat, eum (Henricum), facile perdomabit.’ 
Ep. 219, p. 244, ad Alex. III.: ‘Si illa (Rom. Eccl.) post Deum decre- 
verit salvare nos, continuo liberabimur. Si manus erexeritis, sternetur 
Amalech, et qui vos Pharaoni dedit in Deum, dijiciet omnes adversarios 
Ecclesiae a facie vestra.’ 

7 Ludovic. VII. Ep. a. 1171, ap. Baluz. Addit. ad 1. ii. de Concordia 
Petri de Marca, c. xii. post § 8: ‘ Digna vox est majestate regnantis, Dei 
servum et Ecclesiae defensorem et principem profiteri. Adeo de divinae 
promissionis et clementiae culmine nostra pendet auctoritas, ut ad ho- 
norem, laudem et gloriam ipsius et opera nostra et ipsorum intentionem 
operum referamus. Inde est, quod commissum a Deo nobis gladium et 
in defensionem ecclesiarum et in oppressionem debemus ac volumus exer- 
cere tyrannorum.’ 


§ 6. 


After the murder of the archbishop, Henry II. sent envoys 
to the Pope, deputed to convey his horror at the crime, and his 
repentance for the hasty expressions which had given occasion 
to it. In September 1172, he was reconciled to the Church on 
his undertaking to fulfil the required conditions.1_ Before the 
crime of the 29th December 1170 he had shown himself very 
submissive to the Pope,? and he manifested the same submission 
in a still higher degree when, in 1173, he besought the assistance 
of the Pope against his unruly sons; he acknowledged himself 
to be a vassal of the Pope, and promised obedience to all his 
commands.? His sons also applied to the Pope with offers of all 
possible concessions; but the Pope’s desire was not to side with 
one party or the other, but to reconcile them. ‘The court of 
England recognised even more strikingly the extent of the power 


366 Civil Rulers and the oly See. 





of the Holy See, when Richard Cceur de Lion was taken prisoner 
by Leopold, Duke of Austria, at the command of the Emperor 
Henry VI.in 1192, and kept in confinement till 1194. Queen 
Eleanor, his mother, sought to obtain from Pope Celestine IIT. 
his release from this unjust imprisonment. She implored the 
Pope, in letters composed by the learned Peter of Blois,® to aid 
her by excommunicating those guilty of the act, and by exert- 
ing all his authority on her behalf. She spared uot even re- 
proaches to move him, saying: ‘ What excuses can cover your 
negligence and apathy? for all the world knows you have the 
power to aid my son; the will only is wanting. Has God not 
entrusted the guidance of every empire and every power to the 
Apostle Peter, and in him to you? No king, no emperor, no 
duke is free from the yoke of your jurisdiction. Where is now 
the zeal of Phinees? Let it be seen that the two-edged swords 
have not been put in vain into your hands, and those of the 
other bishops.” ‘ But you will say,’ she continues, ‘that this 
authority is given you over souls, not over bodies, Let it be so; 
it is sufficient for us that you should bind the souls of those 
who keep my son chained in a dungeon. It is easy for you to 
loose his chains if the fear of God shall drive away the fear of 
men. Restore to me my son, O man of God, if indeed you bea 
man of God, and not a man of blood.7 

1 Cf. Hefele, Conc. v. pp. 603, 611 seq. 

2 Migne, CC, pp. 1383, 1384, n. 26: ‘Salutem et debitam in Christo 
subjectionem. ... Vos in patrem et dominum.... in vestris legatis re- 
cepi solemnitate debita et veneratione.’ With even greater humility to- 
wards St. Thomas, n. 27, pp. 1384, 1385. He calls himself, n. 30, p. 
1388, ‘juri semper stare paratissimum.’ 

3 Ib. pp. 1389, 1390, n. 32: ‘Quoniam ergo vos extulit Deus in 
eminentiam officii pastoralis ad dandam scientiam salutis plebi ejus (Luc. 
i. 77), licet absens corpore, praesens tamen animo, me vestris advolvo 
genibus, consilium salutare deposcens. Vestrae jurisdictionis est regnum 
Angliae et quantum ad feudatarii juris obligationem vobis dumtaxat ob- 
noxius teneor. Experiatur Anglia, quid possit Rom. Pontifex et quia 
materialibus armis non utitur, patrimonium B. Petri spirituali gladio: 
tueatur. .. . In fide illius, per quem reges regnant, vestrae magnitudini 
promitto me et dispositioni vestrae in omnibus pariturum.’ Henry's oath, 
ap. Rymer, Foed. i. 27; Muratori, Rer. It. Ser. iii. 463: ‘Juramus, quod a 


Domino P. Alexandro et successoribus ejus catholicis recipiemus et tene- 
bimus regnum Angliae.’ 


Recognition of Papal Supremacy. . 367 





4 Hefele, v. p. 613. 

5 Petri Blesens, Ep. 144, 145, 146, Opp. p. 227 seq. Rymer, Foedera, 
i, pp. 72, 78. Cf. Fleury, op. cit. t. xv. 1. lxxiv.n.41; Michaud, Hist. des 
Croisades, P. ii. p. 862. 

6 Petri Bles, Ep. 145, p. 228. 

7 Ib. Ep. 146, p. 230. St. Bernard once wrote thus to Inrocent II., 
Ep. 198, p. 366: ‘A vobis id omnimodis flagitamus, quod aliunde frustra 
tentatum est. Circumspeximus et non erat auxiliator. Ventum est ad 
commune refugium, illo confugimus, ibi confidimus liberari. Tantwm adsit 
pietas ; nam facultas non deest. Et quidem ex privilegio Sedis apostolicae 
constat, summam rerum ad vestram potissimum respicere summam aucto- 
ritatem et plenariam potestatem. Verum hoc inter cetera vestri singularis 
primatus insignia specialius nobiliusque nobilitat vestrum et inclytum 
reddit Apostolatum, si eripitis pauperem de manu fortiorum ejus. Nulla 
meo judicio in corona vestra pretiosior gemma zelo illo vestro, quo aemu- 
lari consuevistis oppressos nec relinquitis virgam peccatorum super sortem 
justorum, nimirum propter illud, quod sequitur: Ut non extendant justi 
ad iniquitatem manus suas (Ps. cxxiv. 3), &.’ 


§ 7. 

When Richard I. had been set at liberty, he besonght the 
Holy See to obtain for him the restitution of the sum of money 
which Archduke Leopold and the Emperor Henry VI. had ex- 
torted from him as his ransom; also to induce the King of 
France to relinquish some fortresses and other possessions which 
he had seized during his absence, and to prevail upon the King 
of Navarre not to withhold from him the castles which his father 
had agreed to give him as the dowry of his daughter, Richard’s 
wife. Innocent III. warmly espoused his cause. He commis- 
sioned the Archbishop of Magdeburg to engage the brother of 
the late emperor to make restitution of the king’s ransom.! He 
threatened to excommunicate the King of Navarre ifhe did not re- 
linquish the castles in question,? and addressed himselfin a similar 
manner to the King of France. The latter replied that Richard 
had violated former treaties, had forsaken his sister and married 
another, had taken all to himself the property of King Tancred 
and the treasure of Cyprus, which was theirs in common, and had 
been the cause of much personal injury to himself. Richard’s 
envoys maintained that Philip had been the first to act unjustly 
at Messina, and had bronght forward vain complaints. The 
Pope’? communicated these counter-charges to King Richard, and 


368 . Civil Rulers and the Floly See. 





endeavoured to obtain an adjustment, which was accomplished 
later. After Richard’s death in 1199, his widow, Berengaria, 
addressed herself to the Pope with repeated complaints,’ that 
Richard’s brother and successor, John, had kept possession of 
her dowry.® The Pope wrote thus in 1204 to the English bi- 
shops: ‘Ifa judge who feared neither God nor men would at the 
instance of a widow procure justice for her from her oppressors, 
how much less should we close our ears to her supplications, we 
who, however unworthily, hold the place upon earth of Him 
who bore the wrongs of all men, dispensed justice without re- 
gard to persons, and gave us the command, as the Prophet says, 
to relieve the oppressed and defend widows? Although God, 
who searcheth the heart and the reins, knoweth that we love 
the august King John of England as our dearest son, we cannot 
yield to him if it cause injustice ; for without fear or favour we 
can deny justice to no one. We owe it to all men, learned and 
unlearned alike, in virtue of the office of our servitude. For 
we should consider ourselves guilty of wrong towards his royal 
majesty if we were in any measure to spare him by showing 
favour towards him, since we should thereby give occasion for 
injury to his salvation, which rather we are bound in every 
‘way to further and encourage.’® 

1 [nnoce. III.1. i. Ep. 236, p. 203, Ep. 242, p. 206, to Leopold of Austria. 

2 Li. Ep. 211, p. 182. 

3 L.i. Ep. 230, pp. 196-199. 

‘ *Multiplicatis querelis’ Innocent calls it, 1. vii. Ep. 168, p. 475 seq. 

5 Innoce. III.1. vi. Ep. 194, p. 220; 1. vii. Ep. 168, p. 476; 1. xi. Ep. 223, 
p. 1537 ; 1. xiii. Ep. 74, p. 268. 

6 L. vii. Ep. 168. 

§ 8. 

All the princes who took part in the Crusades! were under 
the special protection of the Holy See, and looked to it for sure 
defence against violence. When the Latin Emperor Baldwin of 
Constantinople was taken prisoner by the Bulgarians, his brother 
Henry turned for redress to Innocent III. as his only resource.? 
When King Waldemar of Denmark went to convert Finland, 
the same Pope took precautions against the incursions of the 
Germans into his kingdom. The protection of the Pope was 


Recognition of Papal Supremacy. 369 





undoubtedly at that time the best safeguard against foreign in- 
justice. The princes were conscious implicitly, if not explicitly, 
that international law, unlike positive law of States, is unsup- 
ported by any judicial compulsion, and that sufficient material 
means are seldom present for the punishment of its violation, 
especially when the countries concerned are far removed from 
each other; and that consequently to carry out its principles 
there is every need of the codperation ‘of conscience, of the in- 
fluence of religion, and of the authority of the supreme ruler of 
Christendom.? They felt and understood well the position 
which necessarily belonged in Christian States to the Head of 
the Universal Church ; they recognised him as the father of the 
one Christian family, the representative of Christian justice, 
the avenger of injustice and crime; who, without regard to per- 
sons or to self-interest, and responsible to God alone, could ad- 
just, arbitrate upon, and decide all international disputes. ‘The 
perfection of international law depends upon two conditions: 
(1) The degree in which the notion of a common humanity is 
developed among nations; (2) The closeness of the connection 
by which they feel themselves united. Christendom and the 
Church forming a visible commonwealth cf nations has had a 
powerful influence upon both these conditions. After the fall 
of the Roman Empire it created amongst new States common 
interests and an international law, which, founded upon the 
principles and laws of the Church, was administered by her and 
her Head as an international tribunal under the protection of 
the penalty of the Church’s ban.” 


1 Amongst others, Peter of Blois, Ep. 219, p. 508, shows us how very 
much these agitated the Christian world. He says how the King of 
Sicily, at bad news from the Holy Land, ‘ statim se cilicio induit et per 
quatuor dies plangens et a facie hominum se abscondens illi terrae suc- 
currere pro posse suo anxie et constanti devotione promisit.’ And the 
cardinals vowed to renounce all external pomp, to preach the Crusade 
zealously, to announce a seven years’ Truce of God, &c. This is shown 
too by the letters of St. Bernard, in particular Ep. 256, ad Eugen. III. 
p. 463 seq. ; Ep. 363, ad Orient. Franc. Cler. et Popul. p. 564 seq. 

? Innoc. III. 1. viii. Ep. 131 (Migne, t. cexv. p. 709): ‘Summum et 
praecipuum, imo unicum spei nostrae refugium et fundamentum, qui solus 
prae filiis hominum et principibus et regibus in quantalibet potestate con- 

VOL. I, BB 


370 Civil Rulers and the Floly See. 





stitutis nobis potestis succurrere.’ For other respectful letters from Henry, 
vide Append. ad Innoc. Reg. n. 7, 8 (Migne, ccxvii. p. 292 seq.). 

3 Tnnoc. 1. xii. Ep. 102-104, pp. 116-118, a. 1209. 

4 Ferrand, Esprit de l’Histoire, t. ii. lettre 47, p. 494. 

5 Ancillon, Tableau des Révolutions du Systéme politique de l’Europe, 
t.i. Introd. p. 133 s.: ‘In the Middle Ages, when there was no social order, 
the Papacy, and perhaps the Papacy alone, saved Europe from a state of 
absolute barbarism. It created relations amongst nations far removed 
from each other, was a common centre for all, a point of union for States 
otherwise isolated. It was a supreme court of justice raised in the-midst 
of universal anarchy. Its judgments were from time to time received 
with the respect they merited. It fenced and restrained the despotism 
of emperors. It compensated for the want of a due balance of power, and 
lessened the injurious effects of feudal government.’ 

6 Walter, Naturrecht und Politik, § 464, p. 451. 


§ 9. 


It is quite in accordance with this view of the Pope’s posi- 
tion that Catholic princes repeatedly sought and obtained the 
Pope’s confirmation for their most important acts; for instance, 
their treaties. Innocent III., in 1198, ratified the agreement be- 
tween Richard Coeur de Lion and the Archbishop of Rouen, 
and that between the King of France and Baldwin, Count of 
Flanders ;? also in 1199 the truce between England and France : 
and in 1202 the treaty concluded through the intervention of the 
Polish bishops between the Duke of Silesia and his uncle ;* also 
subsequently, in 1204, that between the Emperor Baldwin of 
Constantinople and the Venetian Republic, concerning the con- 
quered Greek empire.® Likewise the King of France, in 1214, 
besought the same Pope to confirm the covenant he had entered 
into with Countess Blanca of Champagne ;° and John Lackland 
did the same for a ratification of his agreement with Queen Be- 
rengaria.? From a decree of Pope Honorius III. in 1220, it is 
clear that an amicable arrangement arrived at through the inter- 
vention of the apostolic legate between the king and nobles of 
Cyprus on the one part, and the bishops of the island on the 
other part, received the apostolic ratification, which was taken 
advantage of to postpone the execution of some of its clauses.® 
Popes ratified also the Zaws of princes. Thus Honorius II. (1125- 
1130) ratified the law of the Emperor Henry V., passed at Rimini, 


Recognition of Papal Supremacy. 371 





that the clergy should not be bound by oath.9 There are nu- 
merous other instances.!° Popes confirmed also the judgments 
of princes ; thus we find Hadrian IV. (1156) confirming the sen- 
tence of Louis VII. of France upon the Duke of Burgundy." 
They confirmed the privileges conferred by princes; for example, 
Innocent III. confirmed those granted in 1204 by the Emperor 
to the Kings of Bohemia,!” and those -conceded in 1205 to the 
city of Cologne.!3 Also statutes concerning partition of territory, 
as we see in the matter of the possession of the town of Cracow 
in Poland,! ratified by the same Pope. Also their wills, as in 
1211 with regard to the will of King Sancio of Portugal. Also 
their donations; for example, those in 1209 of the Emperor Henry 
of Constantinople,!® those in 1210 from Frederick II. to his 
wife Constantia,!” and those from the King of Leon to a Cis- 
tercian monastery.!§ Finally, they ratified the recall of dona- 
tions. Thus in 1211 the Pope, at the request of King Pedro of 
Portugal, allowed him to revoke the donations made by him 
during his minority, by which donations the crown had suffered 
injury. 


- 1 Innoe. III. 1. i. Ep. 108, p. 93 seq. 

2 Ib. Ep. 130, p. 117 seq. 

3 L. ii. Ep. 24, p 553: ‘Treugas....ratas habemus et praecipimus 
inviolabiliter observari.’ 

41. v. Ep. 112, p. 1110. Rayn. a. 1202, n. 19. 

5 L. vii. Ep. 203, ad Epise. pp. 515, 516. In the letter of the Emperor 
Baldwin, ib. Ep. 201, pp. 510, 511, it is said expressly: ‘ Sicut tenemur, 
rogantes, ut dictas conventiones ratas habeatis et eas auctoritatis apos- 
tolicae munimine confirmetis.’ 

§ Append. ad Innoc. III. Reg. 1. xvi. n. 5 (Migne, cexvi. p. 976). 

7 Rymer, Foed. i. 137. Migne, cexvii. p. 303 seq. Append. Ep. 18. 

8 Cap. viii. de Confirmat. utili vel inutili, ii. 30. 

® Mansi, xii. 362 Jaffé, Reg. n. 5316, p. 588. 

0 Friedberg (De finium inter Eccl. et Civitatem regundorum judicio, 
&c., Lips. 1861, p. 81, nota 1) gives the following references: Innoc, 
III. Reg. Ep. 97, a. 1203; Honor. III. 1217; Suhm, Hist. af. Dan. ix. 
747; Gregor. IX. 1233; Wurdtwein, Nova subsid. vi. 17; Innoc. IV. 
1248; Quix, Cod. diplomat. Aquens, i. 119, 1252; Raynald. h.a. n. 17; 
1254, Cod. diplom. Lubec. i. 190; Alex. IV. 1259; Bohmer, Reg. Nr. 
160, 162. 

1! Bouquet, Receuil, xv. 674. Jaffé, n. 6929, p. 666. 

2 Tnnoc. III. 1. vii. Ep. 54, p. 339. ‘ 

13 Tb. 1. viii. Ep. 176, p. 754. 


a0 Civil Rulers and the Holy See. 





14 Tb. 1. xiii. Ep. 82, pp. 279, 280: ‘Boleslaus quondam Poloniae dux 
,... hoe perpetuis temporibus observari praecipiens per Sedem Aposto- 
licam obtinuit approbari.’ 

15 L. xiv. Ep. 58, p. 423: ‘Quae omnia suppliciter postulasti per Sedem 
Apostolicam confirmari.’ Cf. ib. Ep. 59, 60, 115-118, pp. 424 seq. 473 seq. 

16 LL. xiii. Ep. 34, 35, p. 227. 

VL. xiii. Ep. 84, p. 281 seq. 

8 L. xiii. Ep. 176, n. 345, 346: ‘Qui etiam rex nobis humiliter sup- 
pleavit ut ad stabilitatem perpetuam concessionem ipsius apostolico dig- 
naremur munimine roborare.’ Earlier examples of this kind are numerous. 
Conrad III., in 1146, wrote thus to Eugenius III.: ‘Rogamus, ut quod 
eidem abbati (Wibaldo) et Corbeiensi monasterio de duabus praefatis cellis 
legitima donatione per praecepti paginam confirmayimus, vos vestri privi- 
legii scripto roborare non abnuatis’ (Wibald. Ep. 13, Migne, clxxxix. p. 
1137). The monks of Corvei in the same way sought the Papal ratifica- 
tion (ib. Ep. 15, p. 1139). 

19 L. xiv. Ep. 28, p. 404. 


§ 10. 


Until the close of the Middle Ages, and even beyond, the 
letters from kings to Popes testify the deepest awe and rever- 
ence. Louis XI. of France,! on the 27th November 1461, wrote 
thus to Pius II., who had required of him the abolition of the 
Pragmatic Sanction of 1438: ‘ Knowing as we do that God alone 
by His providence can well provide for the concerns of man, and 
that cities and kingdoms are better fortified and defended by 
religion than by arms and troops, we entertain towards you, the 
Vicar of the living God, such reverence that we are fully re- 
solved to hear your sublime admonitions, especially in ecclesias- 
tical matters, as the voice of the Shepherd, and obey it.... As 
we are convinced that obedience is better than sacrifice, we have 
given our consent to that which has been made known to us in 
your name, namely that the Pragmatic Sanction is antagonistic 
to you and to your office, because it took its rise in rebellion at 
a period of schism and revolt and separation from your See, 
and because it deprives you, from whom all sacred laws proceed, 
and in whom they have their origin, of all authority, loosening 
the bonds of all law and all justice. .. . Although some learned 
men sought to disprove this, and to dissuade us from the abro- 
gation of the Pragmatic Sanction, we, holding and acknowledg- 
ing that you are the prince of the whole Church, the primate of 


ee of ee Supremacy. 373 








religion, the shepherd of the Lord’s flock, do follow your com- 
mands,” and adhere with full consent to the teaching of St. 
Peter. Therefore, according to your desire we abolish, proscribe, 
and abrogate the Pragmatic Sanction in our whole kingdom, in 
Dauphiné, and all our dominions.”* Leibnitz acknowledged that 
in essential matters the sovereigns of the Middle Ages were in 
accord with the principles upheld by the Popes. ‘ Nothing was 
more common,’ he says, ‘ than to see kings submit their treaties 
to the censorship and correction of the Pope, as in the treaty of 
Bretigny, a.p. 1360, and that of Etaples, a.p. 1492.’ Even Vol- 
taire, in the midst of much malicious exaggeration, acknowledged 
that every prince who wished to appropriate or receive back a 
domain addressed himself to the Pope as to his lord; also that 
no prince would venture newly to style himself king, nor would 
he be acknowledged as a king by other sovereigns, without the 
permission of the Pope.® Frederick I{I. interceded with 
Eugenius IV, in behalf of young Ladislaus, begging him not 
to countenance or confirm any other candidate for the kingdom 
of Hungary.® 

1 Hard. Cone. t. ix. p. 1640. Roscovany, Monum. t. i. pp. 113, 114, n. 
144. Inter Epist. Aeneae Sylv. n. 402, ed. vet. Nuremb. 1486. 

* Teque jubentem sequimur. 

3 *Tu enim, cum scias, quid auctoritate divinitus tibi tradita possis, 
quas pro regni nostri et ecclesiarum in eo tranquillitate postulabimus, non 
negliges res necessarias, poterisque semper quod optimum fuerit judicare.’ 
The Pragmatic Sanction was not in fact completely abolished until the Con- 
cordat between Leo X. and Francis I. 

4 Leibnitz, diss. 1, de Auctorum publicorum usu. (Praef. ad cod. di- 
plom. Jur. gent. 1693, f. Opp. t. iv. p. 299). Cf. Tract. de Jure suprem. 
P. iii. (Opp. iv. pp. 330, 401). 

5 Voltaire, Essai sur les Meeurs, t. ii. ch. xlvi.; t. iii: ch. lxiv. Cf. also 
Fleury, t. xiii. disc. 8, n. 10, 18; t. xix. disc. 7, n. 5; Michaud, Hist. de 
Croisades, t. iv. p. 163; t. vi. p. 225, 4th ed. 

6 Aeneae Sylvii, Ep. 168, ed. vet. Nuremb.: ‘Etsi non dubitemus 
Apostolicam Sedem tamquam veritatis doctricem justamque vitae ma- 
gistram quorumlibet juribus favorabilem esse nullique prorsus injuriam 
facere, quia quidquid ab ejus solio manat, justitiae lancibus libratur et 
aequitatis: non tamen abs re fore putamus aliquo per nos scribi beatitu- 
dini tuae, quibus jus serenissimi principis Ladilai....commendatum 
efficiamus et eorum qui ficta pro veris referunt impiis resistamus conati- 
bus,’ &c. 


VE Civil Rulers and the Floly See. 





Sat: 


It is true that, appealirg to their absolute independence, some 
princes in the Middle Ages defied! the Holy See for long periods, 
but generally only in the heat of passion and for their personal 
interests. The prevailing law is not to be estimated simply by 
deeds, but these should be judged by their conformity to the 
law. Powerful criminals may set at naught every sentence of 
condemnation. And thus excommunicated soveréigns might suc- 
cessfully employ the means at their disposal to gain the support 
of a large number of their subjects or even of foreign princes, 
and thus fortified, dispute the justice of a sentence which they 
would have fully recognised at another time or in a case not 
personal to themselves. Many times have Popes replied with 
dignity and patience to insulting letters from princes.® Their 
firmness led, in most cases, to their triumph, and brought power- 
ful princes back to them repentant. Bishops, too, even in later 
medieval times, have not unfrequently resisted Popes ; but 
from the opposition of individuals no one can conclude that 
the rest of the episcopal body desired to dispute the Papal 
prerogative ; thousands of facts and witnesses would render 
such a conclusion impossible. Still less can the words and 
deeds of individual sovereigns in direct conflict with Rome be 
held to weigh against repeated recognition of the power of the 
Holy See. 

1 In Caron, Remonstrantia Hibernorum, P. ii. cap. xi. pp. 101-104, a 
series of more or less convincing passages is collected. 

2 Gosselin, ii. pp. 147, 148, 373. 

3 H.g. the reply of Nicholas I., 865 and 866, to the letters of the Em- 
peror Michael III. Ep. 8, 9 (Mansi, xv. 187 seq. 216 seq.) ; also Innocent 
III. to the insults of the tyrannical King of Portugal, 1. xiv. Ep. 8, p. 383 


seq.: ‘Sancti Petri successores non consueverunt inferre convicia, sed ea 
exemplo Christi cum patientia sustinere.’ 


§ 12. 


It is often objected! that many authors, and some even who 
wrote in the Middle Ages, lay down the principle that kings 
have no superior but God, and are restrained from sin only by 


Recognition of Papal Supremacy. ‘375 





fear of Him. Ivo of Chartres? is cited as an instance of this. 
We need not new point out that Ivo (to whom, by the way, the 
‘decretum’ in question cannot be attributed with certainty) 
brings forward also proofs of the superiority of the Church and 
of Papal jurisdiction over kings ;? in the chapter on the crimes 
of kings he shows merely the gravity of their crimes and the 
difficulties in the way of their repentance. His words, ‘God 
alone is the judge of kings,’ if taken literally, would imply that 
their acts might not even incur ecclesiastical censure ; and 
Bossuet would not wish them to mean this.4 They refer pri- 
marily to the personal motives and intentions of princes in the 
acts of their administration,® and their true meaning is that 
there is no power over the prince to punish him with the 
sword for doing ill in those matters in which subjects owe 
him obedience. If any one thinks from such passages as this 
in the writings of the Fathers® to conclude: that a prince 
sinning against the law of God cannot be called to account by 
the Church, he must also concede that the subjects of the king 
have over them no power but the king’s, thus denying that God 
has established two powers.7 Theologians tell us that princes 
are not under the law’ as far as their coercive power is concerned, 
but are so with regard to their directive power.2 Any one sub- 
ordinate only to the Pope was in the Middle Ages regarded as 
subject only to God, for the Pope was considered as simply God’s 
Vicar.!° His power was not physical or material, but was a moral 
and spiritual power relying upon public opinion for its efficiency. 
If simple abbots and monks, such as St. Bernard, could upbraid 
kings for their crimes, threatening them with the justice of God," 
the Pope could do so with the better right of one to whom by 
virtue of his office of chief pastor his position gave a higher 
power. No constitution had then adopted the principle ‘ that 
kings are above all human laws, and acknowledge no judge but 
God in matters ecclesiastical and civil.’!2 


1 Bossuet, Def. P. i. 1. iii. c. xiv. p. 303. 

2 Ivo, Decret. P. xvi. c. xlii.: ‘ Populi peccantes judicem metuunt, reges 
autem, nisi solo Dei timore metuque gehennae coerceantur, libere in prae- 
ceps ruunt,’ to Isidor Hispal. Sent. 1. iii. ¢. 1. n. 4. 


376 Civil Rulers and the Holy See. 





3 Ivo, Decret. P. v. c. ceclviii. Ep. 51, ad Henric. Anglor. reg. 

4 Bianchi, t. ii. 1. v. § 11, n. 5, p. 314. 

5 Bianchi, t. i. 1. iii. § 6,n.4,p.510. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, ii. § 109, 
p. 521 seq. 

6 E.g. Optat. Milev. de Schism. Donat. 1. iii. c. iii, Ambros. in Ps. 1., 
Miserere (ver. ‘ Tibi soli peccavi’). Chrys. inh.1. Hieron. Ep. 46, ad Rustic; 
Ep. 22, ad Eustach. c. v. Greg. Turon. Hist. Eccles. Franc. v.18. Caron, 
Remonstr. Hibernorum, P. ii. c. iv. § 2, pp. 55-58, gives many similar pass- 
ages from the Fathers, who for the most part speak of the sin of King 
David, as also the words of theologians quoted § 3, pp. 59, 60. 

7 Phillips, l.c. p. 523 seq. 

8 John of Salisbury, Polyer. iv. 7, p. 527, disputes the general asser- 
tion: ‘ Principem non esse legi subjectum.’ 

® Not quantum ad vim coactivam, but quantum a vim directivatam. S. 
Thom. Sum. 1, 2, q. 96, a.5 ad 3. Pineda, Com. t. ii. in Job xxxiv. 11, 18: 
‘ Nisi ipse rex et princeps velit sponte se subdere legi et servare jus, quis 
potuit illum coercere aut vi adigere?’ Here is cited, 1. iv. Cod. i. 14, de 
Leg. : ‘ Digna vox est majestate regnantis, legibus alligatum se principem 
profiteri. Adeo de auctoritate juris nostra pendet auctoritas, et revera 
majus imperio est, submittere legibus principatum.’ 

10 Cf. Bianchi, t.; 1. iii. § 5, n. 4, pp. 501, 502. 

11 Thus St. Bernard, Ep. 170, p. 329 seq. to the King of France, to 
whom he says: ‘Horrendum est incidere in manus Dei viventis (Hebr. 
x. 31) etiam tibi, o rex .... quis mihi tribuat mori, ne videam regem 
bonae opinionis, sed spei melioris conari Dei consilio obviare, irritare ad- 
versus semetipsum summi judicis iram, pedes patris orphanorum made- 
facere lacrymis afflictorum, pulsare coelos clamoribus pauperum, sanctorum 
precibus, justisque querimoniis charissimae sponsae Christi, qua est Ke- 
clesia Dei viventis.’ Ep. 220, 221, 226 are still more forcible. 

12 In the constitution of Frederick III. of Denmark of 1665, art. 2. 


§ 13. 

Although medieval sovereigns were chiefly engaged in the 
practice of arms, they were by no means always without scholarly 
education. Besides the zeal for learning of Charles the Great, 
of King Alfred, of the Othos and of Frederick II. of Germany 
and Sicily, not a few princes possessed an education of some ex- 
tent, as Henry II. of England.1 It should be noticed that the 
Norman clergy begged him to cause his son Henry, for the welfare 
of the kingdom, to be well instructed in the sciences.? St. Ber- 
nard’s comparison of a foolish king upon his throne? to an ape on 
a house-top (looking at that distance like a man) represented the 
common feeling of the time. From works dedicated to various 
princes we see that they must have been judges and patrons of 


Recognition of Papal Supremacy. B77 





many sciences and have been educated. Thus St.Thomas dedi- 
cated his work upon the government of princes to King Henry of 
Cyprus,* who died 1253, and another similar work® to Adelaide, 
Duchess of Brabant. Almost beyond numbering are the works 
which at the request or encouragement of accomplished princes 
in various countries were composed for them or dedicated to 
them. The Church never encouraged or desired their ignorance ; 
on the contrary, she always desired, revered, and prized well- 
instructed rulers,7 and she alone in those days was in a position 
to impart a higher education, Historical studies were by no 
means neglected. When Cardinal Cesar Baronius dedicated 
the tenth volume of his Annals to the Emperor Rudolph IT. he 
reminded him of the recommendation of the Greek Emperor 
Basil to his son Leo the Wise, diligently to study the history of 
past times, since much profit might be drawn from them. The 
wisest priestly tutors of princes, men such as Bossuet and Gerdil, 
have never forgotten this, and it was only in the last century 
that classical and historical education was less given to princes, 
and modern philosophy and polite literature made to prepon- 
derate, while religion became a subordinate subject. 


' 1 Petr. Bles. Ep. 66, p. 195, to Archbishop Walter of Palermo. 

2 Petr. Bles. Ep. 67, pp. 210-213. 

3 *Simia in tecto rex fatuus in solio sedens.’ Bern. de Consid. 1. ii. 
€; Yl: mld. 

4 Uccelli, Intorno a’ due Opuscoli di S. Tommaso d’ Aquino, p. 10. 

5 De Regimine subditorum (not Judaeorum, as the editions have it). 
Uccelli, l.c. pp. 14-19. 

6 Later ages are still more rich in such works. The Franciscan John a 
St. Maria dedicated his treatise upon the Church and the Christian civil 
commonwealth (Madrid, 1615) to the Spanish king (Balmes, Catholicism 
and Protestantism, iii. c. lii. p. 112 seq.; a note gives an abstract of it). 
The admonitions of the Deacon Agapitus to the Emperor Justinian were 
translated into various languages by and for rulers (Migne, PP. gr. lxxxvi. 
p. 1159 seq. ; Fabric. Bibl. gr. viii. 36 seq. ed. Harl.). Concerning several 
translations from the Classics which were executed by‘the direction of 
Charles V. of France, as well as of many princes and princesses, vide 
Schwab, Gerson, p. 79. What tke Medicis and other Italian princes accom- 
plished for literature is well known. 

7 An early example is the case of Pope John VIII. and Charles the 
Bald (Mansi, Conc. t. xvii. Append. p. 172). 


ESSAY VIII. 
POPE GREGORY VII. 


Ir has long prevailed as a custom amongst writers of history to 
treat the reign of Gregory VII. as the commencement of a new 
epoch of the Papacy ; but this view is only correct in a partial 
sense. [Earlier pontiticates, particularly that of Nicholas IL, 
whose contemporaries held him a second Elias,! and that of Bene- 
dict VIII., which has never yet been properly appreciated ;? 
the deeds of Gregory’s immediate predecessors, from Leo IX. 
onwards,? who were animated by a spirit like his own, and 
wanted but the opportunity to display a like courage in similar 
conflicts ; the previous relations of Church and State in the 
Western countries ;—all these facts show that if Gregory’s pon- 
tificate is to be considered the commencement of a new epoch, it 
can only be so as the period of a reform in the relations between 
the ecclesiastical and civil orders, by the Church making a more 
extended exercise of the powers which she had long possessed in 
germ, ‘That the Middle Ages should fulfil their mission it was 
necessary that the Papacy, obscured by the pernicious influence 
of Italian nobles and factions during the time of the Othos and 
of Henry III., should come once more to the light, with powers 
undiminished and influence unrestrained. The Papacy alone, 
not the empire—for Charles the Great and his times were gone for 
ever—could weld rival nations into unity, and protect and dif- 
fuse Christian morality and Christian law; the Papacy alone 
could guard the Church’s dearest attributes of catholicity, 
liberty, and purity.4 Before Gregory ascended the pontifical 
throne, everything had been prepared for the great conflict in 
which he was to engage. 

Gregory’s good intentions with regard to Church reform are 
generally admitted ;> but he is reproached with having: I. 


Charges against Gregory. 379 





‘surpassed the limits of the doctrine of Christ, in his claims to 
authority over princes and people, and with having disturbed 
the organisation of feudal States in the struggle about investi- 
tures ;° he is said in this same struggle to have shown a cal- 
culating policy ill becoming the Vicar of Christ, and to have 
committed enormous blunders in his immoderate zeal; and 
that finally, having involved [?] Germany and Italy in a long 
and bloody civil war,’ the conflict failed in attaining the end 
he contemplated.’ II. He is said to have treated all princes as 
vassals of the Holy See ;§ and, III. to have claimed for the Pope 
the right to take and dispose of the possessions of private per- 
sons, as well as of empires, kingdoms, and principalities. 
Let us examine these three charges. 


1 Reginon. Chron. Pertz. Ser.i.579. Cf. Lammer, P. Nicholas I. und 
die Byz. Staatskirche, Berlin, 1857. 

2 Giesebrecht, Gesch. der Deutschen Kaiserzeit, ii. 172: ‘ History has 
hitherto erected no memorial to Benedict VIII., and yet he deserves one 
before other Popes. However fragmentary may be our sources of infor- 
mation regarding him, they are sufficient to show us the form of a man 
who recognised it as his mission to provide for the welfare of all Western 
Christianity, and who feared neither weariness nor exertion to restore to his 
high office the value it hadlost. Benedict is the connecting link between 
the famous Popes of the time of the Othos, such as Gregory V. and Syl- 
vester II., and their great successors Leo IX., Gregory VII., and Urban 
II. As this was overlooked, the gradual development of Papal power 
appeared less connected than it was in reality.’ : 

3 Will, Die Anfinge der Restauration der Kirche im eilften Jahrh. 
Marburg, 1859, 1864. 

* The pious Abbot Gottfried of Vendéme lays stress on these three attri- 
butes above all, Tract. de Ord. Episc. (Migne, PP. Lat. clvii. p. 282). Opuse. 
vi. (ib. p. 222), he says: ‘ Ecclesia semper Catholica, libera et casta esse 
debet. . . . Quando vero Ecclesia saeculdri potestati subjicitur, quae ante 
domina erat, ancilla efficitur, et quam Chr. D. dictavit in cruce et quasi 
propiis manibus de sanguine suo scripsit chartam, amittit. Hanc enim 
libertatis chartam Christus vindicavit in cruce et suae sponsae Ecclesiae 
per semetipsum dedit ut homines alios per peccatum factos diaboli servos, 
ipsa libera liberos et Dei filios faceret et suos, qui sibi diligenter servirent 
et tamquam bonae matri devoti filii obedirent.’ 

5 Huber, p. 5, who is more moderate here than Janus. Neander and 
other Protestant writers have fully acknowledged the purity of Gregory’s 
intentions. 

5 Was the feudal system a kind of ‘ Noli me tangere,’ that must not 
be ‘ disturbed’ even in a case of necessity, as a defence against peril, as 


380 Pope SEM ge 8G 


even Pichler allows that Gregory’s was? Pichler, Gesch. der Kirchl. Tren- 
nung, i. p. 223. 

7 This is Janus all over, p. 124. 

® Huber, p. 8. 


Part I. Grecory’s ConFuict with Henry IV. 


$ 1. Gregory’s admonitions. § 2. The proceedings of Henry. The Synod 
of Worms. § 3. Excommunication and release from the oath of alle- 
giance. § 4. Henry IV. at Canossa. § 5. The Pope unconnected with 
the election of the opposition king. § 6. Recognition of Rudolph. 
The Antipope Clement III. § 7. Occupation of Rome and corona- 
tion of the Emperor. § 8. Gregory’s fundamental principles. § 9. 
Justificution of his proceedings against Henry. § 19. With reference 
to the dispensation of the oath of allegiance. § 11. His principles not 
novel, § 12. St. Peter Damiani. § 13. No unfairness in Gregory. 


SL 

In the year 1072, Pope Alexander II. had remonstrated with 
the King of Germany, Henry IV., concerning whose excesses 
and crimes his most trustworthy contemporaries speak unani- 
mously,! and in the spring of 1073 he excommunicated Henry’s 
counsellors, who were addicted to the practice of simony, and 
summoned the king to give account in Rome.? The Saxons had 
already declared that a king rendered more famous by his crimes 
than by his name should not be left on the throne, especially as 
he had not received the imperial crown.? Gregory’s intentions 
with regard to Henry were in the beginning anything but hos- 
tile. The king was young, and seemed still capable of amend- 
ment. Gregory applied to him to confirm his election ;* he tried 
every means of reclaiming him,°® and regarded him as ‘ future 
emperor.6 The Empress-mother Agnes codperated in endeav- 
ouring to arrange an understanding between them.” Henry IV. 
wrote, towards the end of August or beginning of September 
1073, to Gregory ‘ words full of sweetness and obedience, such 
as neither he nor his predecessors had ever before addressed to 
the Church of Rome:’ he called him father, recognised the ne- 
cessity for interchanging support between the two powers, testi- 
fied repentance for his misdeeds, promised amendment and 
obedience, and besought counsel and assistance.* Gregory en- 


Gregory's Conflict with Henry IV. — 381 





praised the Empress Agnes for her efforts after peace ;!° his 
two letters of the 7th December 1074! also bear witness to a 
thoroughly friendly relation. Henry had given a favourable 
reception to the Papal legate, and had promised his codperation 
for the extirpation of simony and the abolition of clerical 
marriage. On the 20th July 1075 the Pope wrote to the king 
with regard to the appointment to the see of Bamberg, and still 
hoped from him the fulfilment of his promises,!? 


1 Lambert von Hersfeld says of him: ‘In omnia genera flagitiorum, 
ruptis omnibus modestiae et temperantiae frenis, praecipitem se dedit.’” 
Further witnesses are Berthold (t 1088), Bernold (+ 1100), Paul of Bern- 
ried, Bruno ‘de bello Saxonico,’ Donizo, Bonizo, Marianus Scotus, Hugo 
of Flavigny. Anselm of Canterbury regarded Henry IV. as a successor of 
Nero and Julian (‘ de azymo et ferment,’ Praef. Opp. p. 135). Cf. also Vita 
8. Anselmi Ep. Lucens. (Pertz, Scr. t. xii.). The witnesses in Henry’s. 
favour are of far less consideration ; Benzo’s Panegyrikus is called by 
Schlosser a lampoon. Upon the witnesses, cf. Natal. Alex. Hist. Eccl. 
saec. 11. et 12, dissert. 2, a. 1, t. xiii. p. 523 seq. ed Bing. 1788; 
Bianchi, Della potesta e della polizia della Chiesa, Rome, 1745, iv. t. i. 
1. ii. § 1, n. 2, p. 195 seq. 

2 Bonizo, Lib. ad Ame. p. 810. Ekkehardi, Chron. Univ. a. 1073. 
Pertz, vi. 200. Jaffé, n. 3470, 3530, pp. 397, 401. 

3 Cf. Bossuet, Defens,. Declar. Cleri. Gall. P. i. 1. iv. c. ix. p. 352, ed. 
Mogunt, 1788. 

4 Cf. Hefele, Conc. v. p. 3 seq. 

5 Reg. Greg. VII. 1. i. Ep. 9, ad Gothofr. Duc.; Ep. 11, ad Beatr.; 
Ep. 19, ad Rodulf. Duc.; Ep. 24, ad Brun. Veron.; Ep. 26, ad Herlemb. 
Mediol. (Migne, PP. Lat. t. cxlviii. pp. 291 seq. 308, 310. Jaffé, p. 406 
Beq.). 

6 L. i. Ep. 20, ad Rainald. Cum. Ep. p. 303. Cf. p. ii. Ep. 26, p. 671. 

7 L.i. Ep. 21, ad Anselm. ; Ep. 85, ad Agnet. Imper. 

8 Post Greg. 1. i. Ep. 29, p. 312, ed. Migne. 

9 L. i. Ep. 39, p. 320 seq. d.d. 20. Dec. 1073. 

101,51; Ep. 85, p..dL7.. 

11 L, ii. Ep. 30, 31, p. 384 seq. Jaffe, n. 3664 seq. p. 415. 

12 LL, iii. Ep. 3, p. 430. J. n. 3720, p. 419. 


§ 2. 

But soon after (11th September 1075) Gregory had to com- 
plain of Henry’s inconsistency, and earnestly recommend to 
him the affairs of the diocese of Bamberg, as a reminder of his 
admonitions.1. However, Henry’s proceedings with regard to 
the bishoprics became every day more arbitrary and disgraceful ;. 


382 Pope Gregory VII. 





deavoured to reconcile the Saxon nobles with the king,® and 
his severity towards the Saxons increased, and the insolence 
with which his victory over them inspired him caused him to 
disregard all his former promises. At last Gregory (1075) bit- 
terly complained that he had returned to his friendship for the 
excommunicated counsellors, and had disowned by his deeds 
the submission which in letters he had promised to the Church 
of Rome; he declared at the same time? that he was willing to 
modify, as far as his conscience allowed, the decrees of the last 
Synod, which had prohibited the much misused lay-investiture.* 
Gregory declared that he wished to be at peace with the king, 
if the king would keep peace with God, and repair whatever 
evil he had done, to the injury of the Church and the peril of 
his own salvation.t The Papal plenipotentiaries were ill-treated 
at Goslar, at Christmas 1075. Henry, without fear or shame, 
remained in the company of the excommunicated lords, and 
would have no reconciliation: he compelled the legates to pro- 
ceed to the extremity of summoning him to the Symod to be 
held in Rome in the ensuing Lent, to answer the charges of the 
crimes imputed to him, and of threatening him with excommu- 
nication in case of non-appearance. Up to this point Bossuet 
discovers nothing in the Pope’s conduct inconsistent with the 
legitimate sphere of his authority.° Hereupon Henry convened, 
in January 1076, his Synod of Worms, at which the court 
bishops declared, upon vain pretexts and with much abuse, 
that the Pope, whom they had acknowledged till then, was 
deposed.6 Thus the unhappy conflict which produced so much 
injury to the empire began with a crime that threatened to 
plunge the whole Church into the direst confusion. 

1 Lili. Ep. 5,7, pp. 433, 435. 

2 L. iii, Ep. 10, p. 439. Jaf, p. 420. 

2 Cf. Hefele, Conc. v. 34-42. 

4 L. ili. Ep. 15, ad Wifred. Mediol. p. 446. 

5 Bossuet, l.c. p. i. 1. ii. c. xxx. p. 241. 

6 Bernoldi, Chron. (Pertz, vii. 432). Lambert, Ann. a. 1076, p. 241 


seq. Paul. Bernried, Vita Greg. c. vi. n. 49 seq. Migne, l.c. p. 63 seq. 
Pertz, Leg. ii. p. 44. 


Gregory's Confitct with HenryIV. 383 





§ 3. 

At the Synod held the following month Gregory received the 
sentence of deposition which Henry had the audacity to send 
him ; whereupon, with the consent of 100 bishops,! he excom- 
municated Henry, and released his subjects from their oath of 
allegiance, at the same time forbidding the king to exercise his 
right of government.? This was neither a deposition nor a de- 
privation ; it was merely a suspension, and was, according to 
the usage of the time, a necessary consequence of the excom- 
munication ; for none of the faithful could hold intercourse with 
an excommunicated person, and no one being excommunicated 
was capable of governing as long as he remained under the 
ban. It was not an irrevocable sentence, but a measure to 
endure until the required satisfaction was performed ;° if, how- 
ever, the obstinacy continued for a year, the sentence was de- 
finitive. The assembly of princes at Tribur and Henry’s advo- 
cate with the Pope admitted that he wouid lose his kingdom if 
he remained under the ban for a year and a day.* It was Gre- 
gory’s object to move the king to repent, and perform satisfac- 
tion ;> he reminded the German princes, after the sentence, that 
he had pronounced it not from earthly motives, but in accord- 
ance with his duty ; and if Henry returned to God they might 
receive him in a friendly spirit, and let mercy, not justice, pre- 
vail.6 He only desired that Henry should dismiss his bad 
counsellors, take worthy men in their place, repair the evil that 
had been done, seriously amend his life, and no longer treat the 
Church like a slave. Henry’s partisans stoutly denied the le- 
gality of the excommunication ;’ for they felt what the others 
expressed,§ that a prince who no longer belonged to the Church 
could not conduct the government of a Christian people. Gre- 
gory laid most stress upon the excommunication,® considering 
the rest of the sentence merely the consequence of this. He 
reserved it to himself to absolve from excommunication: other- 
wise timid, timeserving, or unfaithful bishops might have 
absolved the king, without requiring due satisfaction.!° 


1 *Cunctis qui convenerant, episcopis id fieri decernentibus,’ says 
Lambert. The biography of Anselm of Lucca (ce. iii.) has: ‘ Omnis illa 


384 Pope Gregory VII. 





synodus jure indignata anathema illi conclamat. ‘Omnibus acclamantibus 
definitum est,’ says Paul Bernried, c. vii. n. 62, p. 74. 

2 ¢Totius regni Teutonicorum et Italiae gubernacula contradico.’ 
Mansi, xx. 467. 

3 Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 11. diss. 2, art. 4. Bianchi, t. i. 1.i. § 2, 
n. 9-11, pp. 200-202. Dollinger, Lehrb. d. Kirchengeschichte, ii. P, 218. 
Phillips, K.R. iii. § 125, p. 158 seq. Hefele, v. 83. Gosselin, ii. ¢. ii. 
a. 1, p. 120 seq. 

4 Lambert, a. 1076: ‘Quod si ante diem anniversarium excommunica- 
tionis suae, suo praesertim vitio, excommunicatione non absolvatur, absque 
retractatione in perpetuum causa ceciderit, nec legibus deinceps regnum 
repetere possit, quod legibus ultra administrare, annuam passus excom- 
municationem, non possit.’ Paul Bernr.c. lxxxv: ‘ Quia juxta legem Teu- 
tonicorum se praediis et beneficiis privandos esse non dubitabant, si sub: 
excommunicatione integrum annum permanerent.’ 

5 Reg. 1. iv. Ep. 3, ad univ. tidel. p. 451. 

6 Reg. 1. iv. Ep. 3, ad German. p. 457. 

7 In Gregory’s letter to Hermann of Metz,1. iv. Ep. 2, p. 454, he treats 
of the objection: ‘Regem non oportet excommunicari.’ In the letter 
Audivimus (Ep. P. ii. n. 26, p.671; Mansi, xx. 377) he answers the ques- 
tion: ‘ Utrum (Henr.) juste sit excommunicatus.’ Bernold of Constance, 
Apolog. super Excom. Greg. VII. (Migne, l.c. p. 1067 seq.), contests the 
point with those who took no heed of the excommunication, and, Op. de 
Vitanda Excom. Communione (ib. p. 1181 seq.), those who considered inter- 
course with excommunicated persons allowable. 

8 Stephen of Halberstadt wrote thus to Walram (Migne, l.c. p. 1446) : 
‘Pro quibus nefandis malis ab apostolica Sede excommunicatus (Henr.) 
nec regnum nec potestatem aliquam super nos, qui Catholici sumus, poterit 
obtinere.’ i 

9 L. iv. Ep. 2, p. 454, Henry is called: ‘excommunicatus rex, si fas est 
dici rex;’ it is said of him: ‘ excommunicationem incurrere non timuit ;’ Ep. 
3, ad Germ. p. 456: ‘ judicio Spiritus Sancti excommunicatis,’ then ‘ anathe- 
matis vinculo alligatus et a regia dignitate depositus.’ Cf. Ep. 6, ad Leod. 
Ep. p. 460; Ep.8,ad Episc. Tusc. p. 462; Ep. 22, ad Hugon. Ep. Diens. 
p. 476. Also P. ii. Ep. 25, p. 670 (Mansi, xx. 375), ad Henric. Ep. Trid. : 
‘ Promittimus, festum B. Petri non prius transeundum, quam in cunc- 
torum notitia certissime clareat, illum justissime esse excommunicatum.’ 

10 L. iv. Ep. 2, p. 455; Ep. 3, p. 457. 


§ 4. 


Henry wished to take vengeance on the Pope; but he soon 
saw himself abandoned, deprived of all consideration, and hu- 
miliated before the assembly of princes at Tribur. To escape the 
loss of his throne, he submitted to the prescribed conditions. 
The princes, weary of his misgovernment, agreed that his case 
should be decided at a diet to be held at Augsburg on the 2d 


Gregory's Conflict with Henry IV. = 385 





February 1077. The Pope was invited to join this diet, which 
was to be held under his direction. On his journey towards 
Germany Gregory learned that Henry had entered Ttaly.4 It was 
his intention to forestall the Pope, and procure absolution 
before the dreaded meeting at Augsburg.? His appearance 
before Canossa somewhat perplexed the Pope ; for Henry, by 
taking this journey, had broken the condition imposed on him, 
of awaiting the Pope at Augsburg ; and Gregory neither wished 
nor dared to pass judgment upon an accused person at a dis- 
tance from his accusers. The penance which Henry performed 
at Canossa was in no way imposed upon him by the Pope, but 
was freely undertaken by Henry, as a proof of his amended dis- 
positions ;° it was of a character not uncommon in those days, 
and was not considered degrading. As Henry declared himself 
ready to make all necessary promises, besides freely under- 
taking this penance, Gregory could not spurn him in his seem- 
ing penitence, and he granted him absolution, with reservations, 
however, in case of relapse. The Pope communicated these 
proceedings to the German princes, who must have felt some 
degree of displeasure with him ; and he also acquainted them 
with the conditions which Henry had accepted,* one of those 
most insisted upon being that Henry should appear before a 
diet to answer the charges brought against him by the princes. 
The Pope had no choice in this: he might pardon Henry’s 
offences against himself and against the Church, but he could 
not compel the princes to return to their obedience to Henry.” 
They had already meditated electing another king, a.p. 1076.° 


1 Hefele, l.c. p. 77 seq. 

2 Lambert: ‘ Rex certo sciens omnem suam in eo verti salutem, si ante 
anniversarium diem excommunicationis absolveretur .... optimum factu 
judicavit, ut Romano Pontifici in Italiam occurreret.’ 

3 On these and other questions see Floto, Henry IV. vol. ii. p. 129 seq. ; 
and Hefele, p. 84 seq. 

4 L. iv. Ep. 12, ad German. pp. 465 467. 

5 Hefele, p. 87. 

6° L. iv. Ep. 7, p. 461, ad Henr. Ard. et Med. 


VOL. I. CCG 


386 Pope Gregory VII. 





§ 5. 

In spite of all this, on the 28th January 1377 the fickle 
king broke the covenant he had made at Canossa, and entered 
into a close alliance with the evil-doing bishops of Lombardy. He 
barred the passes into Germany, thus preventing the Pope from 
attending the proposed meeting. Contrary to Gregory’s wish,? 
the German princes elected, in March 1077, Duke Rudolph of 
Swabia to be their king; but although Rudolph had been all 
submission whilst Henry was violating treaties and detaining a 
Papal legate in prison, the Pope did not at once declare himself 
against Henry and in favour of Rudolph ; neither did he wish 
to excommunicate the new king before giving him and his 
electors a hearing. He still hoped, in council with the German 
princes, to arrive at a settlement of the dispute, and thus avert: 
the great evils impending.” Rudolph thought otherwise, and 
sought to end the matter by the sword, a.p. 1078. This civil 
war can no more be laid to Gregory’s charge than the one before it, 
which was occasioned by Henry’s oppression of the Saxons. He 
had no part in Rudolph’s election, and the flame was kindled by 
Henry’s faithless violation of treaties.2 Nay, Gregory was bit- 
terly reproached by Rudolph’s followers for not declaring himself 
positively against Henry, and for still clinging to the hope of his 
conversion.* 

1 Cf. 1. ix. Ep. 28, Notum facimus, p. 629. 

2 TL. iv. Ep. 23, 24, p.478 seq.; l.v. Ep. 7, 15, 16, p. 492 seq. 500 seq. ; 
1, vi. Ep. 1, 4, p. 509, 514. The reproach of inconsistency which has been 
made against the Pope (Defensio Declar. p. i. 1. i. § 1, ¢. ix. pp. 102, 103) 
is refuted if the deeds and proceedings are correctly set forth. 

3 Hefele, p. 99. 


4 Bruno (Pertz, vii. 372 seq.). Mansi, xx. 386. Migne, l.c. p. 745 
seq. 


§ 6. 

Envoys were despatched by both kings to the Synods held 
in Rome in 1078 and 1079, but they needed more instructions 
and fuller powers than they had received; the Papal legates in 
Germany were endeavouring to keep peace between the parties. 
On the Ist of October 1079, Gregory declared to the followers 


Gregory's Conflict with Henry IV. 387 





of Rudolph that it was the more unjustifiable of them to accuse 
him of an inconsiderate policy, since no one had more than he 
to suffer from Henry ; that he had sided with neither ; that if 
his legates had acted contrary to their instructions he deeply re- 
gretted it, but could not on that account depart from the path of 
justice.! Not till the 7th March 1080 did he renew the eccle- 
siastical sentence upon Henry, who had been guilty of fresh 
crimes, and at the same time he acknowledged Rudolph as king.? 
Henry’s followers then declared the Pope deposed, and on the 
25th June elected as antipope,* under the name of Clement III., 
the simoniacal Archbishop Guibert of Ravenna, who had been 
often excommunicated. After Rudolph’s death, on the 15th 
October 1080, Henry proceeded to Italy to install the antipope. 
Gregory’s distress was at this moment extreme ; his only hope 
of earthly assistance was from Robert Guiscard, who had not 
shown himself hitherto to be very trustworthy. ‘ Truly astonish- 
ing,’ writes Hefele, ‘is the courage with which Gregory, whilst 
engaged in a struggle for his own existence, keeps his attention 
upon the needs of the Church in all parts of the world, not 
losing sight of the necessities even of private individuals and 
convents; and equally astonishing is the unruffled calm and 
firmness which he maintained in the midst of the greatest perils, 
without deviating one finger’s breadth from his principles. His 
own dire need never prevented him for an instant from entering 
into everything with apostolic dignity and power, encountering 
even the great and mighty ones of the earth with admonitions 
and chastisements, when sacred things or the duty attached to 
his office appeared to require it.’* 


1 LL. vii. Ep. 3, p. 547. J. n. 3867, p. 432 seq. 
2 Mansi, xx. 531-534. 
3 Ecceh. Chron. h.a. Pertz, Scr. vi. 203. Decret. Brixin. ib. Leg. ii. 


p. dl. 
4 Hefele, p. 146. 


§ 7. 
In 1081, Gregory wrote to Bishop Altmann of Passau and 
Abbot William of Hirsau,! that for himself he did not fear 
Henry’s passage of the Alps, but that he desired to secure Ger- 


388 Pope Gregory VIT, 





man support for the loyal Countess Mathilda; he counselled 
the Germans not to be in too great haste to elect a king, lest they 
should make an unsuitable choice; the one upon whom their 
election fell should take an oath of affording the necessary se- 
curity to the Church. He charged the legate Altmann to receive 
in a friendly spirit any of Henry’s partisans who might return 
to him. When Henry had advanced as far as Ravenna, Gregory 
declared that he would rather sacrifice his life than forsake the 
path of justice. Ifhe had so willed, he might have obtained great 
concessions from the king.2 In May, Henry reached Rome ; but 
the town closed its gates at his approach. He caused the anti- 
pope to be crowned in a tent, and after devastating the surround- 
ing country returned to Lombardy. In Germany, Count Her- 
mann of Luxemburg was crowned as opposition king on the 26th 
December 1081, but he wanted the power and foresight to take 
advantage of the weakness which at that time existed amongst 
the partisans of Henry. The Pope remained firm when Henry, 
for the second time, and again a third time, advanced against 
Rome.? On the 3d June 1083, Henry seized the Leonine city 
with the church of St. Peter, and then asked Gregory to crown 
him, saying he would abandon the antipope. Gregory, however, 
maintained that he must first of all perform satisfaction, and thus 
obtain absolution.* At Easter in 1084, Henry was crowned em- 
peror in St. Peter’s by the antipope, but was obliged to retreat 
before the advancing force of Duke Robert, who came to the 
assistance of the Pope, besieged in the castle of St. Angelo. 
Gregory then left Rome, and died at Salerno on the 25th of 
May 1085.° 

1 L. ix. Ep. 3, p. 667 seq.; Ep. 10, p. 674 seq. J. pp. 437, 438. 

? L. ix. Ep. 11, p. 615, ad Desid. Abbat. J. n. 3933, p. 438. 

> Hefele, pp. 150, 151 seq. 


* Bonizo ap. Oefele, Rer. boic. Ser. ii. 818. 
5 Hefele, p. 156 seq. 


§ 8. 
Gregory frequently expressed his guiding principles in his 
letters and encyclicals. In one of the latter he says: ‘ By this we 
believe that the love of God is infused into our hearts, that we 


Gregory's Confiuct with Henry LV. 389 





wish for one thing, long for one thing, and strive for one 
end. Our one wish is that the wicked may be enlightened and 
may return to their Creator. Our one longing is to see Holy 
Church, now trodden under foot, in confusion, and divided into 
various parties, restored to her ancient beauty and strength. Our 
one endeavour and end is that God may reign in us, and that we, 
with our brethren and those who persecute us, may become 
worthy to enter into eternal life.’! In another place he says: 
‘The princes of the people and the princes of the priests come 
out with great multitudes against Christ the Son of the Almighty 
God, and against His Apostle Peter, to destroy the Christian 
religion and spread the perversion of heresy. But, by the grace 
of God, neither threats, nor persuasion, nor promises of earthly 
honour will avail to withdraw from Him to their impiety those 
who trust in the Lord. They have entered into a league against 
us, because we cannot be silent when the Church is in danger, 
and because we resist those who take no shame in reducing the 
Bride of Christ to slavery. A woman, how poor soever, may 
lawfully take a husband according to the laws of her country and 
her own wish ; but the will of wicked men and their horrid de- 
vices would prevent Holy Church, who is the Bride of God and 
our Mother, from adhering lawfully, according to God’s laws 
and her own desire, to her Bridegroom upon earth. We cannot 
suffer that heretics, adulterers, and usurpers should stand in the 
place of fathers to the sons of the Church, and should brand them 
with the dishonour of adultery. Gregory was well aware how 
many enemies he made by his zeal for justice ;? he felt the whole 
weight of the burden that was laid upon him ;* he found so little 
support, because almost every one ‘ sought their own things, not 
the things that are Christ’s.’> -‘ We may not,’ he writes,® ‘ dis- 
regard the law of God from respect to any one, nor leave the 
straight path for man’s favour ; as the Apostle says, “If I yet 
pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ”’ (Gal. i. 10). 
In his decrees against the incontinence of the clergy, against 
simony, and against lay-investiture,’ which at that time wrought 
so much mischief in the Church, he kept to the earlier Church 
legislation and the decrees of his predecessors down to Nicholas 


390 Pope Gregory VII. 





II. and Alexander II., and could truly say : ‘Whilst we observe 
or defend the statutes of the holy Fathers, we bring forward in 
our judgments upon ecclesiastical affairs nothing new or imagined 
by ourselves, but we follow and perform what they have pro- 
nounced by the Holy Ghost.’ Gregory’s decrees are supported 
by a succession of previous canons,’ and he only increased the 
severity of some of them to suit the exigences of the time. 
With all his burning zeal for the purification of the clergy, and 
in the midst of his great struggle with faithless bishops, per- 
fidious nobles, and evil of all kinds, he showed a tender sympathy 
for all the woes of Christendom, even for Greeks and Orientals.!° 


1 L. ix. Ep. 21, ad univ. fideles, p. 622. 

2 Pf. ii. Ep. 64, p. 708. Mansi, xx. 628. 

3 L. ix. Ep. 2, p. 604. 

4 L. vii. Ep. 8, ad Monach. Cluniac. p. 552: ‘Nos quoque tanti cul- 
minis onus quod ultra vires est, sustinentes, ejusmodi solatio sublato, cum 
neminem aut vix paucos suffragatores similes inveniamus, quanto mentis 
angore teneamur liquido quidem potestis et ipsi perpendere.’ 

5 L. i. Ep. 9, ad Gottofr. Duc.; Ep. 42, ad Sicard. Apul. p. 322 ; 1. ii. 
Ep. 49, ad Hug. Abb. p. 460; Ep. 77, ad Gebh. Salisburg. p. 428; P. ii. Ep. 
1, ad Lanfranc, p. 643 (Mansi, xx. 274). 

6 L. i. Ep. 9, ad Gottofr. p. 291. 

7 Upon investiture, cf. Cardinal Vincent Petra, Comment in Constit. 
Apostol. Bull. Venet. 1741, f. t.i.; Const. Callisti II. § 1, p. 235 seq.; and 
Card. Humbert, advers. Simon. (Martene, Thes. nov. Anecd. t. v.). This 
kind of investiture some held to be schismatical, some to be heretical (Ivo 
Carnot, Ep. 235, 238; Joh. Ludgun. Ep. ad Ivon. ap. Labbé, xii. 1190). 
Gottfried of Venddme distinguishes a double investiture : ‘ Alia est investi- 
tura, quae episcopum perficit, alia vero quae episcopum pascit. Ila ex 
divino jure habetur, ista ex jure humano.’ (Opuse. vi.; Migne, clvii. p. 219). 

§ L. iv. Ep. 6, ad Henric. Ep. Leod. p. 460. 

® Gregory (1. iv. Ep. 22, ad Hugon. Diens.) quotes the can. 22, Conc. 
viii. oecum. (869). Bernold in his Apology points out the earlier authori- 
ties (Migne, l.c. p. 753 seq.). Vide also Hefele, Cone. iv. pp. 759, 791; v. 
21, 40seq. In the ninth century, Florus (de Elect. Episc. c. iv. Migne, cxix. 
p. 13) wrote: ‘S. ordinatio nequaquam regis potentatu, sed solo Dei nutu 
et Ecclesiae fidelium consensu cuique conferri potest. Quoniam episco- 
patus non est munus humanum, sed S. Spiritus donum.’ 

Jo T,. i. Ep. 49, p. 329; 1. ii. Ep. 37, p. 390; 1. viii. Ep. 1, p. 571 seq. 


§ 9. 
Gregory VII. did not fail to explain and justify his conduct 
in reference to Henry IV. He did this especially in two letters 


Gregory’s Conflict with Henry IV. 391 





to Bishop Hermann of Metz (in 1076 and 1081). This prelate 
was not amongst those who ‘inquired of the Pope by what right 
he could depose the king and release his subjects from their 
oath of allegiance.’ He merely begged to know what answer 
was to be given to those who asserted that kings could not be 
excommunicated, and that the oath of allegiance could never be 
dispensed. In his first letter! Gregory dwells upon the subject 
of Henry’s first excommunication, touching also upon its results ; 
the second letter treats of the excommunication and the release 
from the oath of allegiance.? Concerning the excommunication 
Gregory appeals (1) to the supreme power conferred upon St. 
Peter and his successors, which extends over all the faithful 
without exception : ‘ Whosoever denies the power of the Church 
to bind him denies her power to loose him, and in denying this 
separates himself from Christ.’3 After quoting 1 Cor. vi. 3,4 
Gregory says : ‘If the Holy See, by the power granted her by God, 
judges spiritual things, why not temporal things also? but the 
context shows that he is speaking of lay people, in so far as they 
are or should be members of Christ. He will not have it said 
that kings are beyond the jurisdiction of the Church, nor that 
the civil power is above the spiritual, for they are different in 
their origin and aim, and Pope Gelasius inculcated obedience 
tothe Holy See on the Emperor Anastasius.° (2) Pope Julius 
says that the Roman Church can open and close the gates of 
heaven to whom she will. These and similar expressions were 
in use long before the time of Gregory VII.7 (3) Gregory ap- 
peals also to a passage in a letter from Clement to James, trans- 
lated from the Greek by Rufinus, which was very ancient and 
much used ;*(4)to the conduct of St. Ambrose towards Theodosius 
the Great ;? and (5) to the measures of Pope Innocent I. against 
the Emperor Arcadius concerning St. John Chrysostom.!® Be- 
sides these examples he refers to the penal authority of the 
Apostles (2 Cor. x. 6; 1 Cor. v. 3-11). Although apocryphal as 
well as genuine documents are here quoted, all were in use long 
before the time of Gregory VIL, and their genuineness had then 
never been disputed. The incorrectness of the documents and 
examples he selected need not at all affect the justice of his 


392 Pope Gregory VII. 





judgment." This must be decided by the facts of history and 
the laws then in force. 


1 L. iv. Ep. 2, p. 454. 

2 L. viii. Ep. 21, p. 594: ‘Quod... . postulasti te quasi nostris scrip- 
tis juvari ac praemuniri contra illorum insaniam, qui nefando ore garriunt,, 
auctoritatem S. et Ap. Sedis non potuisse regem Henricum, hominem 
Christianae legis contemptorem, ecclesiarum videl. et imperii destructorem 
atque haereticorum auctorem et consentaneum, excommunicare nec quem- 
quam a sacramento fidelitatis ejus absolvere.’ 

3 L. iv. Ep. 2, pp. 454, 455; 1. viii. Ep. 21, pp. 594, 595. 

4 «Know you not that we shall judge angels? How much more things. 
of this world’ (1 Cor. vi. 3). This passage, in which St. Paul admonishes 
the faithful not to bring their causes before heathen judges, but to suffer 
their disputes to be decided by the ‘ saints’ in the Church, was adduced 
even in patristic times in favour of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Cf. Tho- 
massin, de Vet. et Nova Eccl. Disciplina, P. ii. 1. iii. c. ci.cii. J. a. Ben- 
nettis, Vindiciae Privileg. 8. Petri, t. vi. pp. 509-516. 

5 These words (1. iv. Ep. 2, p. 455) follow immediately: ‘ Reges quidem 
et principes hujus saeculi qui honorem suum et lucra temporalia justitiae 
Dei praeponunt ejusque honorem negligendo proprium quaerunt, cujus 
sint membra cuive adhaereant, vestra non ignorat charitas..... Si ergo 
spirituales viri cum oportet judicantur, cur non saeculares amplius de suis 
pravis actibus constringunt?’ The following passage (I. viii. Ep. 21) is to be: 
interpreted in the same way: ‘Habet enim (Eccl. Rom.) potestatem singu- 
lari privilegio concessam aperire et claudere januas regni coelestis quibus 
voluerit. Cui ergo aperiendi claudendique coeli data potestas est, de terra 
judicare non licet? Absit. Num retinetis quod ait beatissimus Paulus 
Ap.: Nescitis quia angelos judicabimus? Quanto magis saecularia?’ Cf. 
l.iv. Ep. 24, p. 480; Paul Bernried, n. 86, p. 85. Bernold (Apologet. Rat. 
c. ix. and de Solut. Juram. c. iv. Migne, l.c. pp. 1223, 1253) understands 
by ‘saecularia’ the saeculares principes utpote membra Ecclesiae. Here: 
as elsewhere he expresses Gregory’s idea with great exactness. 

6 L. viii. Ep. 21, p. 595, where, in treating of the respect of the Fathers. 
for the Roman Church, he uses what are in fact the words of St. Gelasius : 
‘Etsi cunctis generaliter sacerdotibus,’ &c. (Gelas. Ep. 8, ad Anast. > 
Mansi, viii. 30 seq.; Jaff¢, n. 387) ; but in 1. iv. Ep. 2, this was left out,. 
probably through the omission of the rough draughtsman, or even earlier 
of the clerk to whom it was dictated; and Pseudo-Ambrose was therefore: 
mentioned (Ambrosius in suo Pastorali, as c. x. d. 96, § ult. Honor.). 
The falsification asserted by Janus, p. 115, is by no means proved. 
Bernold, de Solut. Jur. c. iv. (l.c. p. 1253), gives the text in Gratian up to. 
§ 1 more accurately. In 1. viii. Ep. 21, pp. 597, 598, the passage from 
Pseudo-Ambrose follows in another order. 

7 In Anti-Janus, p. 187, No. 81, I quoted the words of Pope Boniface I. 
which are quite analogous to the passage of Julius in Pseudo-Isidore, Ep. 
c. xi, p. 464, ed. Hirsch, which, according to Janus, p. 116, was one of 
the pillars of the foundation ‘on which Gregory VII. built his notions of’ 
dominion.’ The letter of Pope Julius here in question was quoted in France. 


Gregory's Conflict with Henry I V. 393 





in the ninth century (Hincmar, Laudun. Ep. ad Hincmar; Rem. Opp. 
Hinem. ii. 618, ed. Sirm.; Hincmar, Op. ad Laudun. c, xx.). St. Bernard 
agrees, Ep. 42, ‘Si quis tentat excipere, conatur decipere,’ that no one 
can be excepted from the words of St. Matt. xiv. 18, 19. 

8 We find the words in Greg. VII. 1. viii. Ep.21, p.596. They are briefly 
mentioned, 1. ii. Ep. 2. See Ep. ad Jacob. c. xviii. (Migne, PP. gr. ii: p. 
54), used by the Council of Metz, 888, c. 12, and John VIII. Ep. 234. 
The letter was especially used in old times. Cf. note in Ep. cit. Cotel. 
PP. Apost. i. 484. 

® L. viii. Ep. 21, p. 597; 1. iv. Ep. 2, p. 454. The fact is treated of by 
Soz, H. E. vii. 25; Theod. H. E. v.17; the Hist. Tripart; and also the later 
Greek chroniclers, e.g. George Hamart, Chron. pp. 476, 477, ed. Petrop. 

10 Baron. a. 407, n. 22, 23, ex Glyca (Ann. pp. 480, 482). Nicephoro 
Call. (H. E. xiii. 34). Gennad. (Georg. Alex. in Vita Chyrs. Cf. Phot. Bibl. 
cod. 96): Pallad. Vita Chrys. c. xxiv. xxviii. xxxi. Jaffé, Reg. p. 932 (the 
genuine letters, ib. pp. 23, 24). 

ii Bianchi; tek ii § 115 nn. 25-ps 290: 


§ 10. 


Concerning the release from the oath of allegiance and the 
deposition of sovereigns, Gregory appeals, in his own justifica- 
tion, (1) to the action of Pope Zacharias against Chilperic in 
favour of Pipin.! This example was very telling ; because the 
Frankish annalists? throughout favour his view, and show that 
however these facts might be explained,’ at least he was not 
the first to ascribe Pipin’s elevation to the authority of the 
Pope. He appeals (2) to the privileges granted by Gregory the 
Great to a xenodochium (hospital), a convent, and the church 
of St. Martin in Autun, to which was appended the decree that 
any one injuring these institutions, whether he were king, priest, 
or judge, should forfeit his authority. The defenders of Janus. 
(p. 6) briefly dispose of these privileges by calling them spu- 
rious. They disregard the fact that the only reason Janus 
alleges for this (p. 114, No. 53), viz. Launoi’s assertion on the 
subject, has been long since refuted,* like the remarks of Blon- 
dell elsewhere appealed to.° The authenticity® of these privi- 
leges is vouched for by the most ancient and best manuscripts, 
and has been placed beyond dispute by learned French critics.? 
They were granted at the request of Queen Brunhilda, and 
all was arranged according to her wish. We find analogous for- 
mulas in the Councils, for instance, in the fifth of Orleans, a.p.. 


394 Pope Gregory VII, 





549, concerning a hospital founded by King Childebert in Lyons.® 
Hence most Gallican theologians have made objection to these 
‘privileges’ on other grounds, ¢.e. that the clause is to be taken 
in a distributive sense, not cumulative; and that for ecclesi- 
astics deposition is to be understood, and for laics excommuni- 
cation ;° or they would make it out to be rather a curse than a 
judicial sentence ;!° they never ventured to assert them to be 
entire forgeries. According to the views universal in his age it 
was perfectly open to Gregory to appeal, as he frequently did, to 
divine and human laws.!!_ He was forced to inflict the ban until 
amendment had begun, and he could declare that the penalties 
attached thereto by public law had been incurred. It was the 
opinion of his contemporaries that, under certain conditions, 
the oath of allegiance ceased to bind, and that it could be dis- 
pensed by the Pope,!? who could also depose sovereigns in cer- 
tain circumstances.1? With regard to the withdrawal of obe- 
dience from an excommunicated prince, it would have been 
easy for Gregory to appeal to the proceedings of Gregory II. 
against the iconoclastic Emperor Leo IL, as related with much 
admiration by the Greek chroniclers. The Pope in this case 
freed Italy from its obedience to an heretical emperor, forbad 
that tribute should be paid him, and joined in alliance with the 
Franks. Even if the Greek accounts of the affair are open to 
the charge of inaccuracy,’ they must in the eleventh century 
have satisfied all the requirements of an authentic historical 
document, and testify at least the conviction of their authors, 
who speak throughout in praise of the proceedings they de- 
scribe. 


1 Vide for details: Bianchi, l.c. n. 9 seq. pp. 304-327; Charlas, de 
Libert. Gallic. 1. vii. c. x. p. 39 seq. t. ii. ed. 1720; Bennettis, Privil. 8. 
Petri, P. ii. t. vi. p. 384 seq. ; Mamachi, Orig. et Ant. t. iv. 224-239, Also 
Gosselin, t. i. sect. 2, c. li. a. 2. Doc. No. vii. 

2 We find there: ‘ Secundum Romani Pontificis sanctionem rex Fran- 
corum appellatus est ad hujus dignitatem honoris unctus sacra unctione’ 
(Pipinus se.; Annal. Lauresh.). ‘ Zacharias Papa mandavit, ut melius esset 
illum regem vocari, qui potestatem haberet..... Per auctoritatem ergo 
apostolicam jussit Pipinum regem fieri’ (Aun. Loissel). ‘Zacharias P. ex 
auctoritate S. Petri Apostoli mandat populo Francorum, ut Pipinus, qui 
potestate regia utebatur, nominis quoque dignitate frweretur’ (Annal. 


Gregory's Conflict with Henry IV. 395 





Franc. a Pithoeo ed.). ‘ Per auctoritatem et imperium s. rec. D. Zachariae 
P. et unctionem s. chrismatis in regni solio sublimatus’ (Auct. an. ap. 
Mabill. de re Diplom. |. v. tab. 22, p. 384, ed. 1709). Cf. note in Alex. 
Natal. H. E. saec. 8, diss. 2, t. xi. pp. 192, 193. 

3 Many more modern defenders of the civil power have said that Za- 
charias did not depose Chilperic, but merely acquiesced in the deposition 
voted by the nobles of the kingdom. Glossa ad c. 3, c. xv. q. 6. Auctor. 
quaest. in utramque partem disput. (erroneously styled Aegid. Rom.), a.4 
(Goldast. Monarch. ii. 106, ed. Francof.). Somn. Viridar. c. Ixxiii. (ib. i. 
83). Lupold, de Bebenb. c. xii. p. 388, ed. Schard. de Jurisd. Some think 
that the fact is not sufficient to prove the ‘jus’ (Joh. de Paris, de Pot. 
Reg. et Pap. c. xv. xvi.; Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 13 et 14, dissert. 9, a. 2, 
n. 8, p. 823 seq.). 

+ Vide Anti-Janus, p. 110, No. 72. 

5 Friedberg, de finium inter Eccles. et Civitatem regundorum judicio, 
Lips. 1861, p. 26, note 1. 

5 Editor. Maurin. in Greg. M. 1. xiii. Ep. 8, 9, 10, t. ii. p. 1221 seq. 
Mansi, x. p. 348 seq. Jaffé, Reg. n. 1492-1494, p. 149 seq., quotes these 
documents without hesitation. 

7 Such as Simond, Duchesne, Cellier (Hist. des Auteurs, t. xvii. p. 317), 
Gosselin (op. cit. t. ii. c. ii. a. 2). 

8 C. 15 (Hefele, Cone. iii. p. 4). A ‘ privilegium’ of Pope John VIII. 
(872-882) pro conventu Pultariensi, held to be genuine by Innocent III. 
and inserted word for word by him, 1206, in his Constitution, l. ix. Ep. 44 
(Migne, ecxy. pp. 851-854), contains quite a similar formula; it is in strict 
accordance with the time, and offers no insoluble difficulties. Vide 
also a diploma of Leo IY. renewed in 1207 (ib. 1. x. Ep. 142, p. 1241 
seq.). 

® Defens. Declar. Cleri Gall. P. i. 1. ii. c. ix. p. 208 seq. 

10 Natal. Alex. &c. Cf. Thomassin, de Vet. et Nov. Eccl. Discipl. 
P. i. 1. iii. ¢. xxx. n.3. Against these objections, cf. Bianchi, t.i.1. ii. § 11, 
n. 6 seq. pp. 296-303. 

1 Pp, ii. Ep. 26, ad Germ. p. 672: ‘ Propter quae (horrenda scelera) non 
solum excommunicari usque ad dignam satisfactionem, sed etiam ab omni 
honore regni eum absque omni spe recuperationis debere destitui, divi- 
narum et humanarum legum testatur et jubet auctoritas.’ 

12 Bernold, Apolog. Rat. c. xiv. p. 1226 seq. Paul Bernried, pp. 85, 86. 
Gebhard. Salisb. Ep. ad Herm. Metens. ib. p. 859 seq. 

13 Bernold, de Solut. Juram. ec. iv. p. 1253, ed. Migne. 

4 Georg. Harmartol. Chron. 1. iv. c. ecxlviii. n. 17, p. 636, ed. Muralt. 
Theophanes, a.m. 6221, p. 343 (Migne, PP. gr. t. eviii. p. 825; ibid. 
p. 1364, the Latin translation of Anastasius). Zonar. Cedren. Glycas. &c. 
in Bianchi, l.c. § 16, n. 1 seq. p.379 seq. The chronology of the two Pagi 
is certainly incorrect (Hefele, iii. p. 348) ; also Bianchi, n. 7, p. 388 seq., 
showed it to be so. 

1S Hefele, iii. p. 354. seq. Many arguments are brought for the Greek 
accounts by Bianchi, l.c. pp. 391-415. Orsi, Del dominio temporale della 
Chiesa, c. i. p. 1 seq. ed. 1742. 


396 Pope Gregory VII, 





gb 


But above all, Gregory! appeals to the words which Christ. 
spoke to the Apostles, ‘He that heareth you heareth Me, and 
he that despiseth you despiseth Me’ (Luke x. 16). He remem- 
bered the words of Gregory the Great, who wrote:? ‘He should 
not be numbered amongst kings who rather destroys than go- 
verns his kingdom, and alienates from Christ all whom he can 
induce to partake of his perversity. Incited by the lust of dis- 
honourable gain, he seeks to lead the Bride of Christ into cap- 
tivity, and with wicked daring to bring to naught the mystery 
of the Passion of the Lord. For transgressing the bounds of 
the royal authority it is his endeavour to reduce the Church, 
whom our Lord redeemed with His blood and willed to be free, 
into the position of a servant. How much better were it not 
for him to acknowledge himself her servant, and follow the ex- 
ample of God-fearing princes in showing towards her respect 
and obedience! But so insolent is he, that the head of all 
Churches, the Roman Church, he considers his property, and 
over the mistress of nations (Lam. i. 1) usurps the right of 
earthly power. This was forbidden by Him, who committed the 
Church specially to St. Peter.’ Gregory VII. never lost sight of 
the teaching of the Fathers nor of ancient traditions. The ap- 
plication of his principles was new, not the principles them- 
selves; and it was his acts, not his principles, which Pe in 
many so much astonishment.* 


14. ii. Ep. 73, p. 424; 1. iii. 10, ad Henr. p. 440; P.ii. Ep. 59, p. 702 ; 
Ep. 34, p. 681; Ep. 8, p. 651; 1. ii. Ep. 40, p. 393, ad univ. fid. 

2 Greg. M. Comment. in Psalm. poenitent. t. iii. P. v. Opp. ed. Maurin. 
p. 518; cf. p. 532. The genuineness of these Commentaries (see ib. p. 
464) has been much questioned, and many have ascribed its authorship to 
Gregory VII. himself; but if they are not the work of Gregory I. they 
were certainly not composed by Gregory VII. It is a moot point who is 
the emperor or king pointed at by the words: ‘Iste, qui hoc tempore 
Ecclesiam persequitur.’ Marc. Anton. de Dominis de Republ. Eccl. c. xi. 
n. 31, thinks of Justin II. ; Baronius, a. 595, n. 19, of Mauricius ; Bianchi, 
t.i.l.iie. i. § 7, p. 68 seq. of Antharis, King of the Lombards. The 
Maurists favour the second and third hypotheses. For a detailed defence 
of their genuineness, vide Bianchi, t. iii. 1. i. c. i. § 7, 0.20 seq. pp. 70-76. 


Gregory's Conflict with Henry lV. 3.97 





3 Ecclesiam quippe, quam... Salvator noster voluit esse liberam, 
hanc iste potestatis regiae jura transcendens facere conatur ancillam. 

4 Otto Fris. Chron. vi. 35; de Gest. Frid. I. 1. i.c. 1. Bossuet, 1. i. 
sect. l.c. vii. p. 98, ed. Mog. 1788, tries to make more of it than the matter 
warrants, although Otto, according to his position, was not entirely im- 
partial. Bianchi, t. i. 1. ii. § 7, n. 6 seq. p. 257 seq. 


§ 12. 

It has been emphatically asserted that Gregory was opposed 
in his view by his friend Cardinal Peter Damiani, and that the 
latter spoke of the harmony of the spiritual and temporal power, 
not of the subordination of the temporal to the spiritual; also 
that not both swords, but only one, the spiritual sword, was 
held by the Church. But we must remember, first, that in the 
sense of the Middle Ages the harmony of the two powers does 
not entirely exclude the subjection of the State to the Church, 
as we shall show elsewhere more in detail; and, secondly, that 
Gregory very frequently speaks of this harmony of the two 
powers, and presupposes it as the foundation of his view ;1 
thirdly, that as more modern authors have done,” Gregory treats 
regularly only of a spiritual sword, that of Peter LEarlier 
the sword of Constantine had been ascribed to kings, and the 
sword of Peter to bishops. Henry IV. reproached Gregory for 
pretending to temporal as well as spiritual power; whereas 
St. Luke xxii. 38 speaks of two distinct swords, the spiritual 
and civil.> This distinction is not recognised by later writers, who 
say that a double sword belongs to the Church (that is, Christen- 
dom, for all Christian kingdoms were then in the Church)’—the 
spiritual sword, 7.e. the Word of God (Ephes. vi. 17), and the 
civil sword ; the former to be drawn by the Church, the latter 
Jor the Church, for the civil sword should serve the kingdom 
of God as well as earthly kingdoms.’ Fourthly, Cardinal Peter 
Damiani above all objected to ecclesiastics engaging in war, 
and refused to the Pope as well as to all ecclesiastics the use of 
the civil sword,’ which is forbidden them also by the canons of 
the Church.’ Still, in cases of extreme necessity, bishops have 
used civil force in defence of their possessions; and Leo IX. 
‘was compelled from the highest motives to defend the States of 


398 Pope Gregory VII, 





the Church against the Normans, without thereby incurring 
any reproach from Damiani. The Church has never pronounced 
a union of the spiritual and civil powers to be impossible. That 
earthly weapons must be used to protect higher immaterial goods 
is indeed self-evident, and has been maintained theoretically and 
practically by every State engaging in a just war of defence.!° 
Lastly, Peter Damiani desired to see kings reverence and treat 
the Church of Rome as their true mother." He regarded her 
as being placed over divine things, and belonging therefore to 
a higher sphere.!2 There never appears the slightest dispute 
between him and Gregory. 


' L.i. Ep. 75, p. 348, ad Philipp. Reg. : ‘Cum virtus Christianorum prin- 
cipum in ejusdem regis (Christi) castris ad custodiam Christianae militiae 
nobiscum convenire debeat.’ L.i. Ep. 19, ad Rudolph. Duc.: ‘ Sicut duobus 
oculis humanum corpus temporali lumine regitur, ita his duabus dignita- 
tibus (Sacerd. et Imp.) in pura religione concordantibus corpus Ecclesiae 
spirituali lumine regi et illuminari probatur.’ L. ix. Ep. 28, ad univ. fidel. 
p. 628: ‘ Quam pacem (inter pontificatum et regnum) opitulante Domino, 
sicut Christiana devotio cupit et postulat, in eodem Concilio instaurare et 
confirmare optamus.’ P. ii. Ep. 39, p. 688: ‘Ut causa jurgiorum et dis- 
cordia, quae inter regnum et apostolicam Sedem jam dudum agitatur, 
annuente Domino congruum valeat finem sortiri, vos ad synodum.... 
invitamus.’ 

2 Reg. 1. ii. Ep. 76, ad Bamb. p. 427; 1. vi. Ep. 14, 26, pp. 523, 533 ; 1. 
vii. Ep. 4, ad Wezelin, p. 548; 1. viii. Ep. 3, ad Alphons. Reg. Castel. p. 
577; 1. viii. Ep. 5, p. 579; P. ii. Ep. 26, 49, pp. 671, 696. Greg. ap. Paul. 
Bern. ¢. vii. n. 61, p. 73. 

3 Card. Deusdedit, Prolog. lib. c. invasor. (Mai Nova PP. Bibl. vii. p. 
ult. p. 77): ‘ Pugnet rex gladio materiali, ‘‘ quoniam Dei minister est et 
vindex in iram his qui male agunt.’’’ 

4 In 969 by King Edgar of England. Hard. Cone. vi. i. p. 675. 

5 Manifesto of 1076. Mansi, xx. 466. Pertz, Leg. ii. 48. 

6 « Gladius’ means jurisdiction. Du Cange, v. Spatha. Grimm, Rechts- 
althiimer, p. 167. 

7 Cf. Sachsenspiegel, vol. i. a. 1; others infra, a. 8. 

8 Petr. Dam. 1. iv. Ep. 9, ad Firman. Ep.: ‘Inter regnum et sacerdo- 
tium propria cujuscunque distinguuntur officia, ut rex armis utatur saeculi 
et sacerdos accingatur gladio spirituali, qui est verbum Dei... . Ozias rex, 
qui sacerdotale usurpat officium, lepra perfunditur, ct si sacerdos arma 
corripit, quod utique laicorum est, quid meretur ?’ 

® Thomassin, de Vet. et Nov. Disc. P. iii. 1.i. ¢. Ixviii. n. 4. seq. Gratian, 
P. ii. caus. 8. 

10 Bellarm. de Rom. Pont. v. 9. Bianchi, t. ii. 1. iv. § 9, n. 13, p. 132 
seq. Pignatelli, Consult. Canon. t. ix. consult. 68, n. 8 seq. p. 145. 

1 Dam. Opuse. iv. (Migne, cxly. p. 71): ‘Porro autem Rom. Ecclesia 





Gregory's Conflict with Henry IV. 399 


multo nobilius atque sublimius quam mater carnis mater est regis’ (p. 72). 
‘ Carnalis ergo mater adjuvat filium in rebus terrenis et mater Ecclesia filio 
suo praebere non debet auxilium in spiritualibus donis?’ Claus. Dict. pp. 
86, 87: ‘ Sublimes istae duae personae tanta sibimet invicem unanimitate 
jungantur, ut quodam mutuae charitatis glutino et rex in Rom. Pontifice et 
Rom. Pontifex inveniatur in rege, salvo sc. suo privilegio Papae, quod 
nemini praeter eum usurpare permittitur..... Ille tamquam parens pa- 
terno semper jure praemineat, iste velut unicus ac singularis filius in 
amoris illius amplexibus requiescat.’ 
Dam. 1. vii. Ep. 3, ad Henric. p. 121. 


Sid: 


It has also been said that in his actions Gregory dealt un- 
equal measure, ‘ visiting with the utmost severity in Henry IV. 
things which in William the Conqueror he did not venture to 
punish.’ But we know that for a long time Gregory believed 
William to be his faithful ally in the reform movement, the 
Synod of Rouen having codperated in it, and that he long en- 
tertained a favourable opinion of William, who never sided with 
the antipope.1_ Gregory called him the dearest and only son of 
the Church of Rome; saying that he manifested towards her 
the disposition of an affectionate son, and distinguished him- 
self above all other princes.2 For a considerable time he re- 
mained without accurate information of the circumstances oc- 
curring im the remote island, especially since William prevented 
the bishops from going to Rome, of which Gregory complained 
in 1079.2 He afterwards sent him many admonitory letters,* 
and endeavoured to gain Queen Mathilda.® He wrote thus 
to the legate Hugo of Die :®° ‘Although the King of England 
shows himself not so religious as we could desire, still he is 
more deserving and better than other kings, in that he neither 
ruins nor sells the Church of God, that he seeks to secure peace 
and justice for his subjects, that he has made no covenant with 
the enemies of the Cross of Christ against the Church of God, 
that he obliges priests to leave their wives, and enforces the 
payment of tithes upon the laity.’ For these reasons he was 
justified in pursuing towards William a milder and more consi- 
derate course of action. Gregory had always hoped that good 
would come of William, but did not conceal from him his just. 


400 Pope Gregory VII. 





displeasure, as, for instance, when William imprisoned his bro- 
ther, paying no respect to his episcopal dignity.7 William com- 
plied with the request of the Papal legate that the long-inter- 
mitted payment of Peter’s pence might be reéstablished ; but 
when the demand was made him in these times of schism and 
perverse strife against the Holy See to take an oath of allegiance 
to the Pope, he refused, on the plea that his predecessors had 
not taken such an oath, and that he had never promised to do 
so. It is much to be doubted whether this oath of allegiance 
(fidelitatem facere) is the same as the feudal oath;® for as the 
Pope’s own letters only claim obedience in spiritual things,!® and 
as William’s refusal to allow the bishops to go to Rome was a 
great offence to the Pope, an oath of obedience to the Church was 
much more to the point than a feudal oath; also the legate 
Zeuzo or Teuzo said many things which he was not commis- 
sioned to say.11 England had prior to this entered into espe- 
cially close relations with the Holy See.1?_ Alexander II. had 
declared the country to be under the special protection of St. 
Peter,!® as William acknowledged at his conquest.14 Gregory 
was forced by his position to seek protection and support from 
the better-disposed princes. 


1 Mansi, xx. 113 seq. 306, 398. Hefele, Conc. v. pp. 29, 141, 142. 

2 L. i. Ep. 31, ad Lanfranc. Cantuar. 1073, p. 314; Ep. 70, ad Regem 
Angl. a. 1074, p. 344 seq.: ‘Inter reges te solum habemus, quem prae 
aliis diligere suprascripta credimus.’ Cf. 1. iv. Ep. 17, ad eund. a. 1077, 
pp. 470, 471; l. v. Ep. 19, pp. 504, 505, a. 1078; 1. vii. Ep. 23, p. 566: 
“Gemma principum esse meruisti;’ P. ii. Ep. 28, pp. 674, 675. 

3 L. vi. Ep. 30, p. 535, ad Lanfranc.; 1. vii. Ep. 1, p. 845, ad Hubert. 
Subdiac.; 1. ix. Ep. 20, p. 622, ad Lanfranc. 

4 L. vii. Ep. 28, 25, pp. 566, 568 seq. 

5 L. vii. Ep. 26, p. 569. 

© Liix; Hp. 5; p. 610: 

7 L. xi. Ep. 2, p. 642. 

8 P. ii. Ep. 11, p. 748. Lanfranc. Opp. p. 304. Cf. Déllinger, Lehr- 
buch, ii. pp. 140, 141. 

® Bianchi, t. i.1. ii. § 13, n. 6, pp. 346, 347. 

10 Fg. 1. vii. Ep. 23, a. 1080. 

nL. vil. Ep. 1: ‘ Significasti.... Zeuzonem quasi ex nostra parte 
legatum .... verba fecisse, quae noveris ex nobis mandata non esse.’ 

12 King Ina, 725; Offa of Mercia, 794. Pag. jun. Brev. Rom. Pont. 
in Greg. VII. n. 20; Hadr. I. n. 56,57. Bianchi, Le. n. 3, p. 343 seq. 


Limits of Gregory's Suzerainty. 401 





13 Alex. II. Ep. 8, ad Willelm.: ‘ Novit prudentia tua, Anglorum regnum 
ex quo nomen Christi ibi clarificatum est, sub Apost. principis manu et 
tutela exstitisse.’ Mansi, xix. 949. Jaffé, n. 3524, p. 400. 

14 Ranke, Englische Geschichte, i. pp. 41, 53. 


Parr II. GREGORY DID NOT TREAT ALL PRINCES AS VASSALS. 


§ 1. Feudal suzerainty over single kingdoms. § 2. Hungary and Poland. 
§ 3. Bohemia. § 4. Denmark. § 5. Spain. § 6. Corsica and Sardinia. 
§ 7. Various relations of single States towards the Holy See. § 8. 
Gregory’s declaration that Peter was set as a prince over all the king- 
doms of the earth. 


§ 1. 


It is an unfounded assertion that Gregory VII. treated all 
princes as vassals of the Holy See.1 He made no claim to feudal 
suzerainty over France.? His letters to King Philip speak only 
of religious obedience in matters purely ecclesiastical,? and all he 
demanded was that every householder should contribute one 
penny as an alms to the Holy See, at that time so sorely 
oppressed. In support of this requisition, he appealed to the 
example of Charles the Great, who had allowed this subsidy to 
be raised in three places in his empire, and had ceded to St. 
Peter the land of the Saxons. In support of the first asser- 
tion he appeals to a volume of documents, at that time pre- 
served in the archives of St. Peter.t These documents are 
not now extant; but the circumstance is very probable and the 
custom very ancient; but it proves no political dependence.® 
With regard to Saxony, we know that Charles the Great dedi- 
cated and offered to St. Peter the first church consecrated there.® 
Apulia and Calabria were held in. fief from the Holy See from 
1059, or perhaps from 1054, and this was renewed under 
Gregory VII.7 In 1076, Demetrius of Dalmatia, to secure 
peace for his dominions, vowed a yearly tax to St. Peter. He 
received the title of king from the Pope, and was invested by 
the Papal legates with standard, sceptre, sword, and crown.§ 
When in 1079 a certain Wezelin revolted against Demetrius, 
the Pope forbade him? to take up arms against the king, placed 
there by apostolic authority, or to break the faith which had 

VOL, I. DD 


402 Pope Gregory VII. 





been plighted to St. Peter. He declared that any attack made 
upon Demetrius would be as if done to the Holy See, and that 
to her tribunal Wezelin must appeal if he had just ground of 
complaint. It was neither unusual nor uncommon for princes to 
place themselves and their dominions under the protection of St. 
Peter.!° Michael Bogoris of Bulgaria appears to have done so 
under Nicholas I.,4 and Swatopluk of Moravia under John 
VIII.!2. In later medieval times such cases were extremely 
frequent. 


1 Bossuet, lc. 1. i. sect. 1, c. xii. p. 108 seq. Huber, p. 8. 

2 Thomassin, de Vet. et Nov. Discpl. P. iii. 1. i. c. xxxii. n. 13. D6l- 
linger, Lehrb. ii. p. 140. 

3 L. i. Ep. 35, 75, pp. 317, 348; 1. ii. Ep. 5, 18, 32, pp. 362 seq. 376, 
387; 1. viii. Ep. 20, p. 593. 

4 L. viii. Ep. 23, pp. 603, 604. 

5 Bianchi, t. i. 1. ii. § 13, n. 1, p. 339 seq. 

6 Carol. M. Cap. Baluz. i. p. 246. Bossuet, l.c. p. 110. 

7 Hefele, Cone. iv. 725, 767 seq.; v.13, 139. Cf. Baron. a. 1059, n.70; 
a. 1080, n. 39; Murator. Antiqu. vi. 33. 

8 Baron. a. 1076, n. 65 seq. Georg. Prag. Annal. Reg. Hung. Vindob. 
1764, t. i. p. 76. Cattalinich, Storia della Dalmazia, ii. 250. 

® L. vii. Ep. 4, ad Wezelin, p. 548. 

10 Bianchi, 1.c..§M 5.05.14) p37. 

11 Anastas. Biblioth. Praef. in Cone. viii. Baron. a. 869, n. 73. 

Joh. VIIL. Ep. 247 (Mansi, xvii. 181): ‘ Divina gratia inspirante con- 
temtis aliis saeculi hujus principibus B. Petrum....habere patronum 
et in omnibus adjutorem ac defensorem pariter cum nobilibus viris fide- 
libus tunis: =.;. Amore fidelissimo elegisti et usque ad finem sub ipsius et 
vicarii ejus defensione colla submittens pio affectu cupis auxiliante Domino 
utpote filius devotissimus permanere.’ 


§ 2. 

From the time of Sylvester II. (999-1003), Hungary and 
Poland had been united to the Holy See by a similar tie. ‘ Like 
so many other nations, both of these are indebted solely to the 
Holy See for the germ of their national independence and 
development. Sylvester bound them to the See of Peter as 
members of one Christian family, not inferior to their brethren, 
rescued them from the predominating German influences, and 
gave them the means of preserving to the present day a strong 
nationality.’! Hungary was subject to the Holy See from the 


Limits of Gregory's Suzerainty. 403 





time of St. Stephen,” on whom the Pope conferred the title 
of king, as Kings Andreas and Ladislaus in the thirteenth 
century openly acknowledged.? Gregory was anxious that 
Hungary should preserve its independence, and not become a 
feudal dependent upon Germany. The national party had often 
rebelled against subjection to Germany in the time of the Em- 
peror Henry III. Solomon had been erowned king whilst still ° 
a child, and during the lifetime of his father Andreas; but his 
uncle Bela usurped the throne, and kept it till his death in 
1063. Solomon was then proclaimed king by the agency of 
Henry IV., who gave him his sister in marriage. Bela’s sons, 
Geisa and Ladislaus, received only some counties. In the con- 
tention between Solomon and Geisa in 1074, Henry IV. sup- 
ported the former, because he had consented to hold Hungary as a 
German fief. Gregory protested against this foolish weakness as 
contrary to the rights of the Holy See recognised by Henry III.® 
He looked upon Solomon’s defeat by Geisa as a punishment ;° but 
at the same time endeavoured to negotiate peace between him and 
Geisa, whom he only recognised as duke.7 He wished Hungary 
to remain free (in proprio libertatis statu), and subject to no 
king of any other kingdom, owning no superior but the Church 
of Rome, who treated all her subjects not as slaves, but as sons. 
The King of Hungary should not be ‘regulus,’ a viceroy, but 
‘rex,’ a true king. Geisa and Ladislaus reigned one after the 
other, and remained faithful to the Pope. In 1079, Gregory 
praised the religious obedience of Ladislaus in terms which show 
his paternal affection, and could humiliate no king ;? and he was al- 
ways attentive to the affairs of Hungary.!° As to Poland Boleslaw 
IL, Duke of Poland, accepted the title of king from Henry IV., 
A.D. 1076, and received the crown from his bishops.!!_ Gregory, 
who had praised him the year before for the respect he had 
shown towards the Holy See,!* was afterwards obliged to excom- 
municate him for the murder of St. Stanislaus, 1079 ; and Boles- 
law in consequence fled to Hungary, where he died in misery. 
Gregory never asserted any special claims over Poland. 


1 Dudik, Mihrens Allg. Gesch. vol. ii. p. 98. 
* Vita S. Steph. Reg. ap. Sur. t. iv. Sept. 


404 Pope Gregory VII. 





3 Raynald. a. 1233, n. 51; a. 1279, n. 31. Cf. a. 1233, n. 52; 1279, n. 
32 seq. 

4 Dudik, l.c. pp. 238, 284, 292 seq. 367 seq. Cf. Bianchi, l.c. § 15, n. 
2-7, pp. 368-374. 

5 L. ii. Ep. 13, p. 373, Salamoni Regi: ‘Regnum Hungariae §. Rom. 
Ecclesiae proprium est a rege Stephano olim B. Petro cum omni jure et 
potestate sua oblatum et devote traditum. Praeterea Henricus p.m. imp. 
ad honorem 8, Petri regnum illud expugnans victo rege et facta victoria 
ad corpus B. Petri lanceam coronamque transmisit et pro gloria triumphi 
sui illuc regni direxit insignia, quo principalem dignitatem ejus attinere 
cognovit. (Cf. Giesebrecht, l.c. ii, 625). Tu jus et honorem 8. Petri, 
quantum ad te, imminuisti et alienasti, dum ejus regnum a rege Teutoni- 
corum in beneficium, sicut audimus, suscepisti.’ 

6° L. ii. Ep. 63, p. 414, Geisae Duci, a. 1075. 

7 1b: Ep. 70; p. 421. Cf. 1.35 Bp.58,.ps335. 

8 L. ii. Ep. 63, 70, cit. Martin Gerbert of St. Blase remarks on this 
(De legitima eccles. potestate circa sacra et profana. Mon. §. Blasii, 
1761, 1. iv.c.i. n. 18, p.660).: ‘ Secundum horum verborum sententiam in- 
signis haec potius praerogativa haberi poterat, qua quis ab omni solutus 
potestate hujus saeculi soli Deo et Ecclesiae obnoxius foret.’ 

° L. vi. Ep 29, p. 534. 

10 L. iv. Ep. 25, p. 481, ad Strigon. Aep. 

1 Réppel, Hist. Poland, vol. i. p. 190, book i. chap. viii. 

2 L. ii. Ep. 73, pp. 423, 424. 


$3. 

As to Bohemia, Duke Spitinev II. received in 1059-1060 
from the Holy See the privilege of wearing a mitre, and he 
promised to pay a yearly tribute ofa hundred silver marks.} 
Alexander II. confirmed this privilege in favour of Duke Wrat- 
islaw ; and Gregory VII. wrote to him at some length on this 
matter,” as well as on the dispute as to the bishop of Prague.? In 
1074, the duke was still remitting to Rome the hundred silver 
marks sub censi nomine.t The reason of the duke’s desire to 
wear a mitre may be found in his wish to appear to the people 
as impressive as his brother Jaromir, with whom he was not on 
good terms, and who was a bishop. Wratislaw, who had been 
wavering since 1075, at length adopted the cause of Henry IV., 
and allied himself closely with Germany. He was crowned 
king by Henry’s desire ; but his coronation was not recognised 
even by the Antipope Clement III, still less by the lawful 
Popes who succeeded.® Gregory VIL, in 1079,° sent him 
admonitions, blamed him for holding intercourse with excom- 


Limits of Gregory's Suzerainty. 405 





municated persons, #.e. Henry and his followers, and forbade 
the use of the Sclavonic Liturgy, but never asserted any political 
claim over him.’ 


1 Dudik, l.c. pp. 287 seq. 350 seq. On the tribute (census) vid. Tho- 
massin, l.c. n. 11. 

2 Reg. 1. i. Ep. 38, p. 319, a. 1073. 

8 Reg. l.i. Ep. 17, 44, 45, 61, 78, pp. 299, 324 seq. 337, 351; 1. ii. Ep. 
7, 8, 71, 72, pp. 367 seq. 422 seq. 

Li. ip. 7, poser. 

5 Dudik, l.c. pp. 352 seq. 423, 431-433. 

6 L. vii. Ep. 11, p. 554. 

* Innocent III. (1. vii. Ep. 49, Migne. cexv. p. 333) in 1204 recognised 
as king, at the request of Otho IV., the Duke of Bohemia, crowned by 
Philip of Swabia (who was not recognised by Rome as King of Germany), 


and confirmed (ib. Ep. 54, p. 339) the imperial privileges conferred upon 
him. 


§ 4. 


Swen, King of Denmark, made to Alexander II. the promise 
of a yearly tribute! In 1075, Gregory asked if he were still of 
the same mind, and as he desired a closer intercourse with the 
Holy See, recommended to him fidelity to the Church, and 
just government of his people.? In his negotiations with 
Alexander II., Swen desired to make St. Peter his debtor, 
hoping thereby to obtain his special protection for himself and 
his kingdom.? Gregory mentioned‘ a rich province not far from 
Rome (somewhere in the south of Italy), which was in the pos- 
session of heretics (Saracens),° and which he would give to a 
son of the king who was willing to fight for the Holy See. In 
1077, he reminded Swen’s son and successor of his father’s 
loyalty, and recommended if to his imitation ;6 and later he 
wrote to censure the superstition of the Danes,? but without 
making any demand beyond the most ordinary obedience to the 
Church. No trace of a claim to feudal sovereignty is to be 
found in Gregory’s letters to the Kings of Norway and Sweden,’ 
nor in those to the Venetian republic.® 

1 Baron. a. 1062. Jaffé, Reg. n. 3379, p. 390. 

2 L. ii. Ep. 51, 75, pp. 402, 426, 427. 

* L. ii. Ep. 75, p. 426. 

4 L. ii. Ep. 51, p. 403, v. fin. 


406 Pope Gregory VII. 





5 On the sea coast, and near Rome, there were no heretics properly so: 
ealled. Saracens must be meant. In Gregory’s time ‘ infideles’ were also. 
ealled heretics. On the Saracens in Italy, vide Chron. Cassin. i. 43,. 
50, 53; Baron. a. 1016; Bianchi, lc. § 13, n. 9, 10, pp. 349-351. 

6 L. v. Ep. 10, p. 495 seq. 

7 L. vii. Ep. 21, p. 563 seq. 

$I. vi. Hp: 13; p. 5215) 1, vil. Bp. 11; p. 584. 

° L, ii. Ep. 39, p. 391; 1. iv. Ep. 26, 27, p. 482; 1. ix. Ep. 8, p. 613. 


§ 5. 

We know on Gregory’s assurance that Spain, on the con- 
‘trary, from old times belonged to the Holy See, and was tribu- 
tary to her.! - It is very possible Gregory was in possession of 
documents that have been lost to us, and quite credible that 
from 588 to 712 offerings may have passed with regularity from 
Spain to Rome; for we know that Reccared sent rich gifts to: 
St. Peter.2. Gregory’s letters to the Kings of Arragon and Na- 
varre,? as well as to Alphonso of Castile,* only speak of the faith 
and obedience due from all to the Church of Rome.® The pay- 
ment of a tribute can in this instance the less prove a feudal tie 
that it was always customary with the kings of this peninsula, 
from private devotion, to make their kingdoms tributary to some 
church or monastery ; 7.e. Alphonso of Castile chose the monas- 
tery of Clugny and Alphonso of Portugal that of Clairvaux.® 
Before Gregory’s pontificate, Count Ebulo of Racejo accepted 
from the Holy See the privilege of fighting against the Saracens in 
Spain, with the condition of possessing the territory he conquered 
from them under the authority of the Holy See, in return fora 
yearly tribute.7 Count Berengar of Barcelona relinquished to 
the Holy See (a.p. 1091) the town of Taracona, which he had 
taken from the Moors, and held it under payment of a yearly tri- 
bute ; an arrangement accepted by Urban II. In this manner 
conquerors secured their claims from the encroachments of rival 
powers, whose attacks were forbidden by the Pope, and at the 
same time acquired a practically independent dominion. Gre- 
gory’s dealings with Spain were mainly directed to the intro- 
duction of the Roman Liturgy and the restoration of a closer 
relation with Rome. During the reign of Gregory VII. Ber- 
trand, Count of Provence, made over his county to the Holy See 


Limits of Gregory's Suzerainty. 407 





as a free gift; and after his death the Genoese and Pisans, who 
had landed in Africa, extorted from the conquered Saracens a 
yearly tribute to be paid to Rome.!° 


1L. i. Ep. 7, ad Princip. Hisp. p. 289; 1. iv. Ep. 28, ad Hisp. p. 485. 

* Gregor. I. 1. ix. Ep. 122 (al. vii. 127). Ep. Reccaredi ad Gregor. M. 
ap. Baluz, Miscell. 1. v. Cf. Roder, Tolet. Aep. 1. ii. c. xx.; Bianchi, l.c. 
§ 14, n. 1, 2, p. 352-354. 

3 L. i. Ep. 63, p. 339; 1. ii. Ep. 50, p. 401. Mansi, xx. 622, P.ii. Ep. 
3, p. 645. 

4 L. i. Ep. 64, p. 340; Ep. 83, p. 355; 1. viii. Ep. 3, p.577; 1. ix. Ep. 
2, p. 604; 1. vii. Ep. 6, p. 549 seq. 

5 The ‘ servitium, quod B. Petro inde solebat fieri’ (1. iv. Hp. 28), is not 
to be interpreted by the strict feudal law; but often means first-fruits 
or some similar tax. Bianchi, 1.c. n. 3, pp. 355, 356. 

® Annal. Cistere. 2.1141. Petrus Ven. de Mirac. I. i. c. ult. Thomassin, 
MecCAXxxiln. 9; 

7 L.i. Ep. 7, ad Princ. Hisp. a. 1073. 

8 Urban II. Ep. 6, 7. Mansi, xx. 648. Jaffé, n. 4067. Thomassin, l.c. 
n. 8. Cf. also the note to Bossuet, l.c. c. xiii. p. 112. 

® Cf. again 1. iii, Ep. 18, p. 448, Simeoni Ep.; 1. iv. Ep. 28, p. 484; P. 
ii, Ep. 70, p. 713. 

10 Baron. a. 1081, n. 33; a. 1087. 


§ 6. 

The See of Rome had certain special rights over the islands 
of Corsica and Sardinia. Corsica is mentioned in ancient docu- 
ments as appertaining to the States of the Church ;! and Gre- 
gory rejoiced that, in 1077, it desired to return to the Roman 
Church.? He appointed the Bishop of Pisa as his vicar in the 
island, recommending the people and ¢lergy to render him obedi- 
ence. Urban IL, at the request of the Countess Mathilda, in 
1091, confirmed this, with the condition of a yearly payment to 
the Lateran of a tribute of fifty pounds of Lucca coin. Gre- 
gory required from the governors of Sardinia a renewal of the 
old religious obedience and close relation with Rome, and wrote 
to them concerning various affairs of the island. It was a 
matter of no import, and merely an accidental circumstance, 
that the son of Demetrius of Russia desired to receive his king- 
dom from the hand of St. Peter.® 

1 Lib. Pontif. in Hadr. I. Cenni Mon. ii. 60, 61, 125. Records of the 


Othos and of Henry II. Leo III. in 808 speaks explicitly in the letter to 
Charles of the donation. 


408 Pope Gregory VII. 





2 L. v. Ep. 4, p. 489. For about 189 years Rome had no power over 
the island. Limperani, Istoria della Corsica, Roma, 1780, ii. 2. 

3 L. vi. Ep. 12, pp. 520, 521; 1. iv. Ep. 2, pp. 487, 488. 

4 Ughelli, Italia Sacr. ii. 369. Jaffé, n. 4066, p. 454. 

5 L. i. Ep. 29, pp. 311, 312; Ep. 41, p. 322; 1. viii. Ep. 10, p. 583. 


6 L. ii. Ep. 74, p. 425. Cf. Pichler, Gesch. der Kirchl. Trennung, ii. 
p. 8. 


Nae 

It is clear that all States in the Middle Ages were not equally 
dependent upon the Holy See. There was a universal subjec- 
tion of States on matters of religion ; but beyond this, in many 
instances a special subjection, founded on various titles, gene- 
rally on the personal desire of the ruling prince. There would 
have been nothing to find fault with if the Popes, under exist- 
ing circumstances, had endeavoured gradually to organise a 
system of States with the aim of insuring the freedom of peoples, 
the sovereignty of Christian principles, and the protection of the 
weak against the strong; a system which, maintained by the 
voluntary subjection of princes and peoples, would have turned 
all its advantages to their profit, and secured honour and stability 
to Christian principles as well as to individual States.? 

However existing, traces are too incomplete, and single 
instances cannot be taken as proofs of vassalage. Mistakes 
easily arose, because the feudal system was the groundwork of 
almost all order, and any secondary authority was called vassal- 
age.” Certain is it that the Popes acted in this matter on no 
widespread, deep-laid, political scheme, inherited by one from 
the other; things took shape spontaneously, fashioned by im- 
pending dangers, by the spirit of chivalry, or by religious enthusi- 
asm. William of Burgundy swore, in presence of Alexander II., 
of bishops, abbots, and a multitude of people, to draw his sword 
as often as necessity required, in defence of right and of the 
possessions of St. Peter ;3 and many others did the same; they 
dedicated themselves to the Prince of the Apostles, or to some 
other saint, or to some holy place, and made themselves tribu- 
tary thereto. This subjection served also to show that a 
prince placed under the protection of Heaven and of the saints 
was independent of any other earthly power. Gregory VII. 


Limuts of Gregory's Suzerainty. 4.09 





clearly points this out in his letters to Hungary. The Kings 
of Scotland appealed from the Kings of England and other 
rulers, saying that they were subject only to the Pope.°® 


1 Histor. Polit. Blatter, 1857, vol. xl. pp. 943-972. 


2 Du Cange, Glossar. inf. Latin. vy. Feudus. Likewise Hallam, Lingard, 
and others. 

3 Greg. VII. 1. i. Ep. 46, p. 325. 

Norway was dedicated to the king and martyr Olaf, and was subject 
to the archbishop (Raynald. a. 1073, n. 19). Godfrey of Bouillon was homo 
S. Sepulchri et Patriarchae ; the Prince of Antioch was vassal of the Pa- 
triarch of that place. Willelm. Tyr. ix. 15 seq.; x.4; xv. 12. Raynald. a. 
1205, n. 37. Thomassin, l.c. c. xxxi. n. 15; ¢. xxxii.n.1. Cf. also Fleury, 


t. xiii. 1, Ixiv. n. 67; 1. lxv. n. 2; Michaud, Hist. des Croisades, t. ii. p. 
10, 


5 Thomassin, l.c. n. 6,15 seq. Rayn. a. 1299, n. 14, 17. 


§ 8. 

But it is said Gregory asserted, ‘that for all time and in 
every place Christ appointed Peter prince over all the kingdoms 
of the earth." But other Popes said this before Gregory ;? and 
it may rightfully be said? in reference to the universal office of 
pastor conferred upon St. Peter (St. John xxi. 15 seq.), un- 
limited as to place; to the power of the keys, in heaven and on 
earth (St. Matt. xvi. 19) ; and to the words of Jeremiah,* which 
have been referred to St. Peter.t When Leo the Great said Christ 
made St. Peter prince over the whole Church,® he was under- 
stood to mean that as all kingdoms of the world should belong 
to the Church,® he was prince over all earthly kingdoms. In 
this sense St. Leo’s words still stand in the Breviary,’ and they 
have never been taken to imply anything injurious to civil alle- 
giance. The principle Gregory wished to enforce was, that all 
princes should acknowledge the sovereignty of Christ,$ and, not 

making their own will the supreme law, should be guided by 
the law of God, as announced to them by the successor of St. 
Peter. ‘If, wrote Gregory? in 1074, ‘we should suffer princes 
to rule as they please, and to trample God’s justice under foot, 

* «See, [have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, 


to root out and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build 
aud to plant.’ i. 10. 


41c Pope Gregory VII. 





if we should silently consent to this, we should receive their 
friendship, gifts, marks of submission, praise, and much hon- 
our. But as to do this does not accord with our office and 
our duty, there is nothing which, by the grace of Christ, can 
separate us from His love; it is safer for us to die than 
abandon His law.’ The Pope, who possessed no material power, 
and relied‘for support upon moral principles alone, must have 
meant that the law of God should everywhere be revered and 
obeyed ; to enforce this was not merely his right, but his most 
solemn duty. 

1 L. i. Ep. 63, ad Sane. Reg. Arag. p. 339. 

2 Nicol. II. Ep. ad Mediolan. (c. i. Omnes, d. 22): ‘B. Petro terreni 
simul et coelestis imperiijura commisit.’ Bossuet, p.i.1.i. sect. 2, ¢. xxxvi. 
p. 179, explains the passage with a reference to Matt. xvi. 18. 

3 Mamachi, Orig. et Antiqu. iv. p. 179. 

4 By very many authors. Vide Anti-Janus, p. 136. 

5 Leo M. Serm. 4, c. iv. p.19: ‘Quod tantam potentiam dedit ei, quem 
totius Ecclesiae principem fecit.’ 

® Optat. c. Parmen. ii. 1, Aug.de Unit. Eccl. c. viii. n. 20 (on Ps. ii. 8), 
in Ps. Ixxxi. et cxxi. ‘ 

7 Responsorium to the sixth lesson on the feast of SS. Peter and 
Paul, 29th June: ‘ Tibi tradidit Deus omnia regna mundi.’ 

8 Greg. 1. iii. Ep. 10, p. 439. 

° L. ii. Ep. 12, p. 372, ad Halberst. Ep. 


Part III. It 1s raus—E THAT GREGORY TAUGHT THAT THE PoPE 
COULD TAKE AND DISPOSE AS HE WOULD OF KINGDOMS AND OF 
THE PossEssIONS OF PRIVATE PERSONS. 


§ 1. Gregory’s words. § 2. Personal holiness of Popes. § 3. Gregory’s 
death in exile. § 4. Alleged fruitlessness of his conflicts. § 5. Their 
result. § 6. Gregory’s aim to free the Church from ignominious 
shackles. 


Sule 
It is asserted that, according to Papal doctrine as declared by 
Gregory VII., at a Council held in Rome in 1080, the Pope, 
when presiding over a Council of bishops, could, in virtue of his 
authority to bind and to loose, dispose absolutely not only of 
empires, kingdoms, and principalities, but of the possessions of 
all men. But as a fact Gregory does not attribute this power 


False Charges against Gregory. A41T 





to bishops assembled with him in Council, for of these no 
mention was made, but to the Apostles Peter and Paul, upon 
their thrones in heaven,? and thus indirectly to God, who 
will refuse nothing to these the Church’s potent guardians and 
intercessors. Gregory prays that they will obtain that Henry, 
being mercifully chastised by God in this life, may be led to 
amend his ways, that all the world may acknowledge the power 
of the holy Apostles, and that sinners may do penance, and 
save their souls (with a reference to 1 Cor. v. 5).2 Gregory’s. 
words here, which certainly contain no dogmatic definition, 
have met with the same misrepresentation* as has befallen 
‘other passages.° 


1 Allgemeine Zeitung, 19 June 1870. Cf. Schulte, i. p. 32. 

2 Hefele notes this quite justly against Stenzel and Gfrérer, Conc. v. 
p. 132. Also Bossuet, lc. sect. 1, ¢. x. p. 104. Cf. Fessler, Sammlung 
vermischter Schriften, Freib. 1869, pp. 73-75; The True and the False 
Infallibility, trans. p. 70, original p. 41. 

3’ The words are: ‘ Agite nunc, quaeso, patres et principes sanctissimi’ 
(who in the beginning are addressed as Petre princeps Apostolorum et. 
Paule doctor gentium), ‘ut omnis mundus intelligat et cognoscat, quia si 
potestis in coelo ligare et solvere, potestis in terra imperia, regna, princi- 
patus, ducatus, marchias, comitatus et omnium hominum possessiones pro- 
meritis tollere unicuique et concedere. .. . Addiscant nunc reges et omnes 
saeculi principes, quanti vos estis, quid potestis. Confundantur utinam 
ad poenitentiam, ut spiritus sit salvus in die Domini.’ Cf. 1. viii. Ep. 17, 
pp. 590, 591. 

4 If the same remark should be made now as on another occasion, when 
a similar misrepresentation was corrected (A. Z. 24 March 1871), viz. ‘ occa- 
sionally the Pope did not wait until the Apostles granted his prayer,’ we 
reply that this is a confusion of two distinct things. The act of the Pope, 
which in no way involved the actual loss of dominion nor proceeded upon 
the general principle that the Pope could at will depose or appoint kings, 
this act was not denied by Bishop Fessler; who only sought to prove, and 
did prove, that Gregory did not lay down this general principle ascribed to 
him. Shifting the point in question has always been a favourite practice 
with the Janus party. 

5 Another passage is quoted (in the Allgemeine Zeitung, 19 June 1870,,. 
No. 37) from Gratian, c. xv. d. 81, according to which any one commits the 
crime of idolatry who assists at the Mass of a married priest, and the 
blessing of such a one becomes a curse. This passage, which, as it stands, 
is not to be found in Gregory’s epistles, is made up of two parts—the one, 
even to the words of the Prophet, ‘I will curse your blessing,’ as the Roman 
censor observes, is to be found in Marianus Scotus (Pertz, ser. v. 561; 
Migne, l.c. P. ii. Ep. 55, p. 692; Mansi, Suppl. ii. 2; Migne, l.c. pp. 785- 


Al 2 Pope Gregory VII. 





788) ; the other is very common with Gregory, to wit, that as in 1 Kings xv. 
22, 23,and in Greg. M. Lib. ult. Moral. c. x., disobedience is called idolatry 
(1. ii. Ep. 45, 66, pp. 397, 416; l.iv. Ep. 11, p. 465; 1. v. Ep. 24, p. 480; 1. 
vii. Ep. 24, p. 568; 1. ix. Ep. 20, p. 622; Ep. 34, p. 638; Conc. Greg. ib. pp. 
814, 817. Cf. also Innoc. III. 1. ii. Ep. 213, vi. 38; Migne, ccxiv. 772; 
cexy. 43). Gregory was well aware that married priests, who were pro- 
tected by the Council of Gangra, can. 4, formerly offered the Holy Sacri- 
fice, especially in the East; but he had the strongest motives for executing 
his decree against clerical marriage with the support of the laity, whom 
for that reason he prohibited from unnecessarily hearing the Mass of 
‘ presbyteri concubinarii’ (1074, can. 4). By encouraging bad priests, and 
by disregarding the punishments which hung over them (can. 3), the people 
partcok in their sin; and this disobedience was as the sin of idolatry (in 
the wider sense of the word) ; so too the blessing of a suspended or irre- 
gular priest, received in contempt of the Church’s sentence, could not be 
productive of good. ‘Non tam incontinentium, quam pro incontinentia 
damnatorum missas audire prohibuit,’ says Bernold, Apolog. c. xix. p. 778 ; 
who also treats of the Conc. Gangr. c. 4. 


§ 2. 

What Gregory says of the personal holiness of Popes! refers 
not to himself, but to the many saints amongst his predecessors. 
It is drawn from the Roman Synod of Pope Symmachus,? and 
is supported by the example of numerous Popes who have be- 
come better and more zealous amidst the anxieties and labours 
of their pontificate.2 As an instance, take Leo [X., whom Gre- 
gory knew personally, and who lived as Pope a life of great 
austerity, and became more.and more holy during his pontifi- 
cate.* 

1 Bossuet, 1. i. sect. 1, c. xi. p. 107. Janus, p. 121. 

2 Bianchi, t. i. 1. ii. § 10, n. 3, pp. 280-283. 
3 L. viii. Ep. 24: ‘Ad Sedem Apostolicam rite ordinatos meritis B. 
Petri meliores effici et omnino sanctos.’ But Ep. 21, ad Herm. is merely 


‘ meliores.’ 
4 Cf. Hofler, Deutsche Pipste, ii. p. 70 seq. 


§ 3. 

Gregory died in exile, and without having accomplished the 
work he had undertaken; but the words of Stephen of Halber- 
stadt show us how to regard this seeming failure, ‘Is it not,’ he 
says, ‘more blessed to die a good death than to live an evil life? 
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake (Matt. v. 


False Charges against Gregory. 413 





10). Was Nero blessed because he outlived the Apostles Peter 
and Paul; Herod, because he outlived St. James; or Pilate, 
because he outlived our Lord? Nothing of the kind; what 
more unblessed! The words of Wisdom (v. 1-9) are our main- 
stay: we may be contemned, sent into banishment, put to. 
death ; but not bent, not vanquished. We are proud of our 
fathers, who, despising the commands of princes, have earned an 
everlasting reward. Did he live in vain, strive in vain, suffer 
in vain, whose fame after death was so great, whose followers were: 
so numerous, whose friends were the noblest of his contempo- 
Taries, such as Altmann of Passau, Gebhard of Salzburg, Bruno: 
of Merseburg, Anselm of Canterbury, Anselm of Lucca, Paul 
Bernried, Berthold, Donizo, Hugo of Flavigny, Mathilda of 
Tuscany, and the Empress Agnes? If we allow that this holy 
Pope was not entirely free from all human weakness, the truth 
remains that, with courage and determination, he fought a fight. 
that was necessary to secure the liberty and rights of the Church.* 
The struggle was no doubt violent, but a struggle arising from 
the wisest laws, the most salutary institutions, the best-founded 
rights, is made violent by human passions ; and it cannot be 
maintained that the cause of this civil war was really the oppo-: 
sition made by the Church to the shocking tyranny and vice 
then prevalent. To attribute the crimes and disorders con- 
sequent upon the great struggle to the Pope alone, and not also. 
to Henry IV. and to the antipope, whose followers, in 1089, 
cruelly murdered Bishop Bonizo at Piacenza, and were guilty 
everywhere of acts of violence, is to disregard the first prin- 
ciples of justice. Gebhard of Salzburg and Hugo of Fla- 
vigny, as well as the assembly at Tribur in October 1076, at- 
tributed all the evils of the empire and the Church to King 
Henry and his assembly at Worms. It is by no means proved 
that Rome effected Henry V.’s desertion of his father, obstinate 
and excommunicated though he was.* Conrad, his elder and 
better brother, had left his father in 1093. This we know, that 
Henry V., in 1104-5, pretended that he required nothing of 
his father but the restoration of the peace of the Church and 
his reconciliation with the See of Rome ; and sent deputies to 


414 Pope Gregory VII. 





Paschal ITI., received absolution from the censures, and dispen- 
sation from the oath he had taken not to seize the government 
during the lifetime of his father. This the Pope could all the 
better grant as he had long ceased to consider Henry IV. the 
lawful king. Henry V. was, however, equally false to his spi- 
ritual and to his natural father,® and his disposition was exactly 
like that of Henry IV., whose defective education and moral 
faults were repeated in his son. More than one of Gregory’s 
successors had to suffer from them. But it cannot be said with 
truth that Gregory’s conflict failed of obtaining the aim he had 
in view : he succeeded in his principal object of putting an end 
to investiture as practised under Henry IV., and of establishing 
the free election to Church offices, which had become a vital 
question.’ His idea of delivering bishops and abbots from all 
feudal service was followed up by Urban II. and Paschal IL, 
and was formally expressed for the first time at the Council of 
Clermont in 1096, and again, more emphatically, at the treaty 
of Sutri in 1111; but that was only a secondary, not a primary 
object. That the faith of nations was strengthened and the dig- 
nity of the priesthood enhanced; that greater purity was re- 
quired from the clergy and more firmness from the bishops; 
that the Church was preserved from the danger of her offices 
becoming hereditary, and from the formation of a priestly caste ; 
and that new religious societies, full of true zeal, arose,S—these 
were some results of Gregory’s conflict, and truly they were not 
insignificant. 


1 Stephan. Halberst. Ep. ad Walram. (Migne, l.c. p. 1448). 

2 Vide the witnesses collected by Gretser in Migne, l.c. p. 199 seq. 
Godfrey of Vendéme, l.i. Ep. 7 (Migne, clvii. p. 457), quotes the ‘ veridica 
vox B. Gregorii, qui pro defensione fidei mortuus est in exilio.’ 

3 Vide also Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt. Rom. ii. p. 366 seq. 

4 Abbot Hermann, in the Narratio restaur. Abbat. S. Martini, stands 
apart and far from the scene of action. Otbert, de Vita Henr. IV. and 
Otho of Freising, vii. 8, say that he was incited to it by the discontented 
nobles. Vide also Giesebrecht, Kaisergeschichte, iii. p. 702 seq. 

5 Pertz, v. 108. Stenzel, Gesch. der friink. Kaiser, i. 580 seq. Dél- 
linger, Lehrbuch, d. K.G. ii. pp. 155, 156. Hefele, Conc. Gesch. v. p. 
250. 

6 Hildebert, Cenom. ii. Ep. 21: ‘ Quis enim potest praeter eum invenire, 


False Charges against Gregory. 415 





qui patres suos, spiritualem scil. et carnalem, subdola ceperit factione. Iste 
est, qui praeceptis dominicis in utraque tabula contradicit.’ 

7 Dollinger, l.c. ii. p. 143. : 

8 Paul. Bernried, l.c. n. 108, p. 99. 


§ 4. 


The assertion that Gregory’s measures had no lasting result of 
any importance is not proved, because shortly after his reign 
‘even’ saints of the Church like St. Bernard and St. Hildegarde 
complain of the great corruption that everywhere prevailed, nor 
because the secular clergy, as well as the older and more recent 
orders, soon show a great falling off.1 Ascetics and saints are 
precisely those who, in such a matter, would see most clearly 
and judge most severely. What would St. Bernard say of the 
world now? In what terms would St. Hildegarde condemn 
the tendencies of this age to rationalism and materialism? The 
moral and religious life of any age can only be judged relatively. 
Our opponents ought to show that the times after Gregory were 
not better than those before his pontificate, as St. Peter Dami- 
ani,” for instance, has depicted them ; otherwise nothing is proved. 
The decline was chiefly local, and never simultaneous in all 
countries, provinces, orders, and societies. ‘A special dispensa- 
tion of Providence has ever prevented the whole Church from 
falling at once into lethargy. When this has prevailed in one 
part, the life of the rest has. been all the more active, and has 
eventually revivified the stricken lands. In the seventh century 
the Irish Church, in the eighth the English Church, in the ninth 
the French Church, in the tenth and eleventh centuries the 
Church of Germany flourished most luxuriantly, and imparted 
life to the rest.’? At Clugny discipline, relaxed under Abbot 
Pontius, was restored by Peter the Venerable ;* the Carthu- 
sians maintained for centuries the rigour of their order and the 
virtues of their founder ;° but these, exercised in secret, were un- 
known to the world, whilst the crimes of the age were only too 
apparent. St. Bernard’s worthy successors amongst the Cister- 
cians were William of Thierry, Alanus ab Insulis, the Irish 
Archbishop Malachi, Archbishop Peter of Tarantaise ; and the 


416 Pope Gregory VII. 





order earned much praise from Alexander III.,° and worked 
most beneficially in France for a long time, and in north-east 
Germany with special success from 1198 to 1220.7 We find at 
this period many distinguished abbots, for instance, Werner of 
St. Blaise (died 1126), Lietbert of St. Rufus near Valence (died 
before 1114);§ and founders of orders, as St. Norbert, Archbishop 
of Magdeburg,’ and others. A temporary decline should not 
surprise us; it is the fate of all human things.!? Universities 
flourish and decay, States and societies have a period of splen- 
dour and a period of decadence, and each has many gradations. 
A learned Englishman, in the middle of the twelfth century, was 
of opinion that in every religious order there were persons who 
might compare with the saints of earlier times.!' Chapters of 
monastic orders, Councils, and Papal decrees, did much at that 
time towards maintaining and renewing the pristine vigour 
of these congregations.!2 Should no attempt at reform be made 
because, if established, it may not be lasting? Holy men, who 


count it a gain to save one soul, would not thus reckon the cost 
of their labours. 


1 Huber, pp. 9, 10. 

2 Petr. Dam. 1.iv. Ep. 9, ad Older. Ep. Firm.1. i. Ep. 15, ad Alex. II. ; 
1. ii. Ep. 1, ad Card. Lib. Gomorrhian. 

5 Mohler’s Kirchengeschichte, edited by Gams, ii. p. 203. 

4 Wilkens, Peter the Venerable (t+ 1156), Leipzig, 1857. 

5 Petrus Vener. 1]. ii. Ep. 12, p. 201 seq.; de Miraculis, 1. ii. c. xxviii. 
p. 943. Joh. Saresb. Polycr. 1. vii. c. xxi. p. 691 seq.: ‘ Siquidem Carthu- 
sienses quasi avaritiae triumphatores praecipue ubique clarescunt.’ Ib. 
c. xxiii. p. 698, he praises the orders of Grammont with the Carthusians. 
Peter of Blois, pupil of John, Ep. 62, p. 268 seq. also praises the Carthu- 
sians. 

6 Alex. III. 1165, Ep. 311, p. 336, ed. Migne: ‘Inter ceteros religiosor 
causam Ecclesiae prudentius defenderunt et Catholicam foverunt magna. 
nimiter unitatem et divinis etiam obsequiis noscuntur ferventius inhaerere. 
On the monastery of Clairvaux, Ep. 324, p. 349: ‘Quam famosum, quan 
celebre Claravallense monasterium habeatur et in quanta religione quan 
tave hactenus honestate floruerit, non solum ad vicinorum, sed etiam ac 
longe positorum notitiam jam pervenit.’ Cf. Joh. Saresb. l.c. c. xxi: 
‘Cistercienses B. Benedicti.... praecepta et vestigia sectantur ad un 
guem.’ Also Richard of Canterbury (Petrus Bles. Ep. 82, p. 252), Stephen 
of Tourney (Ep. 1), Philip, Abbot of Bonne Espérance (de Contin. Clericor. 
ce. exxy.), William of Malmesbury (1. iv. de Gest. Reg. Anglor.). 

7M. H. @Arbois de Jubainyille, Etudes sur I’ état intérieur des 


false Charges against Gregory. 417 





Abbayes Cisterciennes, Paris, 1858. Fr. Winter, Die Cistercienser des 
nordéstlichen Deutschlands, Gotha, 1869. 

8 Migne, PP. Lat. t. clvii. pp. 719 seq. 711. 

®° Papebroch, Acta SS. t. i. Jun. 

10 Joh. Saresb. Polyer. l.c. c. xxi. 

1 Thbid. ¢. xxiii. p. 629. Cf. Petrus Bles. Ep. 97, p. 305. 

Cf. Gams in Mohler’s Kirchengesch. ii. p. 608 seq. 


$5. 


Obviously I cannot now write a complete Church history ; 
and it is useless to spend more time in making mere assertions. 
The whole of the twelfth century bears ample testimony to the 
rich results of St. Gregory VII.’s great struggle. Bitter com- 
plaints are raised in these days against the spirit of worldliness 
that then penetrated the whole Church; but those who make them 
are neither saints nor ascetics, and their right to complain may 
well be questioned. We may allow indeed that, in individual 
cases, the worldly spirit gained admittance, for it is an evil that 
in all times has had to be contended with. We may even allow 
that this spirit of worldliness in the Church contributed to the 
alienation of the Albigenses from Christian principles, although 
their external and ostensible connection with the East, the 
fascination always possessed by secret doctrines when artfully 
spread, and other causes, must not be forgotteu ; also that the 
religious condition of the south of France and north of Italy was 
different from that of any other part of Christendom. The ‘Poor 
of Lyons’ did, there is no doubt, originally intend to ‘return to 
the simplicity of the Gospel ; but their view was a mistaken one, 
and their disobedience and self-assertion soon led them to fol- 
low the path traced by other sects. Jt is not untrue, though not 
the whole truth, that the great mendicant orders arose from a 
reaction, not against the Church, ‘she having become rich and 
worldly,’ but against the worldliness and luxury of her rulers 
and members. But, on the other hand, it is true that reform 
movements within the Church met with lively encouragement 
and support from the Holy See ; that Popes always upheld and 
recommended voluntary poverty; and that Franciscans and Do- 

VOL. I. EE 


418 Pope Gregory VII. 





minicans, even after their first fervour, performed great deeds 
in instructing the people, undertook most laborious missions to 
Africa, America, China, Tartary, and the north of Europe, and 
earned unending gratitude for civilising the nations. No fol- 
lowers of St. Francis were ever branded as heretics for follow- 
ing implicitly the rule of life enjoined by their founder—for the 
Paulists (Minims), Alcantarists, and Capuchins did this under 
the protection of the Holy See—but for disobediently pre- 
ferring visionary fancies to Papal decisions, for being full 
of separatist pride, and for disseminating actual heresy. The 
Fraticelli were only a sickly outgrowth from the parent stem. 
Other complaints, of Rome being always in the foreground, and 
ecclesiastical order being suffered, in her interest, to fall into 
decay, are merely repetitions of the current Protestant objec- 
tions, which have been outdone by Janus. We may reason- 
ably ask what ecclesiastical order the Church possessed inde- 
pendent of Rome ; an order perchance like that of the various 
‘Churches without the Papaey,’ described with so much learn- 
ing by Dr. Dollinger in 1861,! and which, in the circumstances 
of the Middle Ages, would have been a more chaotic and confused 
disorder than is well conceivable. We all agree that the ‘ revival 
of art and science in the thirteenth century, the imposing display 
of the power of the Papacy in the Crusades and in the world-ruling 
policy of Innocent III.,’? would be no indemnification for the 
‘decay of the Christian life, to foster which is the Church’s 
highest duty.’ But this decay is far from being proved: it was 
not greater than in many former centuries, in which, taking them 
altogether, we might discover as many dark places. Consider 
the condition of the Frankish kingdom before and during the 
time of St. Boniface, the condition of Spain at the time of the 
Moorish invasion, and the disorders of the tenth century. In 
the Crusades the power of the Papacy was not manifested alone ; 
chivalry was there in all its perfection, and religious enthusiasm 
in all its strength. The artists and scholars of the thirteenth 
century contributed as much to the religious life as to art and 
science, and were amongst the noblest characters that ever lived. 
The power of the Popes was equally a political necessity and 


False Charges against Gregory. 419 





an instrument in the hands of Providence for planting, propa- 
gating, and protecting Christian civilisation. 


1 Kirche und Kirchen, p. 156 seq. 
2 Huber, p. 13. 


§ 6. 

In conclusion, we will venture to repeat the words of one of 
our most eminent theologians.! ‘The great exertions of this 
age’ (that of Gregory VII. and St. Anselm) ‘had only one pro- 
found internal motive ; to this unity of object they must all be 
referred, else they would all and each be without a real significa- 
tion. But when this one and true spring of action manifested 
itself, it was under a multiplicity of forms, each of which laid 
hold of some special force or talent of the human mind; the 
fulness of time alone completely developed it: this whole, 
ander its many forms, was religious enthusiasm, the renewed 
yearning after divine and eternal truths which had been so long 
stifled in the woes and melancholy errors of the time. The 
flame of religion struggled for freedom, and in the glow which 
it diffused the chains that bound the spirit were sundered. The 
liberty of individuals insures the liberty of the mass; for if the 
individual is, as he should be, truly an organic member of the 
hody corporate, his fate is deeply and wondrously involved in 
the destiny of the whole. If the body corporate be a slave, the 
individual cannot be free; therefore the emancipation of the 
body corporate is the first necessity, whence arose the struggle 
for the liberties of the Church known as the struggle about in- 
vestitures. ‘The Church, purchased and redeemed by the blood 
of Christ, cannot be the handmaid of the State: this was the 
watchword of the time. It was no idle comparison, but one full 
of significance, that identified the freedom wherewith Christ has 
made us free with freedom from the despotism of the State. 
In the early days of the struggle Gregory openly took up the 
first position. To insure effective action, the members must 
share and participate in the operations of the head ; or rather, 
as the desire of the whole is shown only in the centre, it follows 
that what showed itself in the head was found and manifested 


yet 
4% 
t 


420° | Pope Gregory VII. 





in the members.’ This is surely a more profound and more 
tenable view than those which prevail at the present day. 


1 Mohler’s Kirchengesch. edited by Gams, vol. iii. p. 314 seq. Cf. 
Ges. Schriften und Autsiitze, i. p. 34 seq. 


Note to page 37. 


The passage at the end of § 4, p. 37, might mislead. Vigil’s 
book is condemned as containing ‘ doctrinas et propositiones re- 
spective scandalosas, temerarias . . . impias et haereticas’—terms 
similar to those in which Quesnel’s propositions are proscribed 
by the Unigenitus. But no one doubts that the Unigenitus is 
a ‘dogmatic infallible decision.” Compare Pius IX.’s Brief 
Eximiam tuam (June 15, 1857) addressed to the Archbishop of 
Cologne on the obligatory force of the Pope’s previous condem- 
nation of Ginther’s writings. And see also Dr. Hergenrother 
himself when treating of the Syllabus. Part I. § 2, p. 207. [Tr.] 


END OF VOL. I. 


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